Age of Darkness
by Coming Darkness
Summary: When Team Rocket, Galactic and Dim Sun form together and launch a plan to release a Pokémon of darkness. Soon Ash, the gang and the rest of the world is plunged into a battle for survival as they race to stop Darkrai.
1. Prologue

Hello there.

This is the prologue to my Pokémon story, 'Age of Darkness'. Now to match my love of dark stories this will not be like the Pokémon cartoons, it will be dark, people will die and some other things will happen that I don't want to tell you about just now. So don't read it if you want a happy story.

This Prologue is set a hundreds of years before the modern day but the rest of the story will be in the modern day with Ash and the gang.

Finally, if you don't quite understand what's happening in this then doesn't worry. More will be discovered as the story goes on so you have to read and find out.

**Battle of the Shadow Crystal**

"We have hostiles coming in from the north"

"What? How many?"

"I don't know. It looks like their entire army"

"Damn"

General Haling smashed his fist into the table, sending large splinters flying into the air and spilling his freshly pored cup of tea. Many of the people in the room looked up at him. There was a mixture of fear and anticipation on there faces as they looked to him for orders.

But he didn't know what to say.

He sighed as he felt a small tug on his trouser leg and looked down at the Marill that was tugging on them. He gave a weak smile as he bent down and patted the Pokémon on its head. The usually cheerfull Pokémon gave a faint squeak as it looked at him, seeming to sense that the end was coming.

Because it was, and they all knew it. The Rebel army outnumbered them by at least a three to one margine, they had more powerful Pokémon and better men. It was suicide to stay here, and yet stay they must. The Rebels could not be allowed to get a hold of the Shadow crystal. If they did…then doom would surly fall upon the empire.

"How long do we have?"

"Two hours at maximum"

Haling cursed again as he looked back at the people surrounding him. He knew that they were praying for him to order them to retreat, for him to tell them that they didn't have to stay here and die. But they also knew that was an order he would never give, he couldn't. If there was even the sligtest hope that they could hold the crystal they had to take it, even if that hope was no existant.

"Get everything ready, today we fight for the crystal" he tried not to think about the faces of fear nad anger that starred at him as he turned and left the room.

"Marill"

Haling tried to smile again as he bent down and allowed Marill to climb onto his back, the little creatures hands grabbed onto his helmet as it wrapped its legs around his neck. Normally he didn't allow the Pokémon to do this but they both knew that this was there last day together, and he was going to make sure it was a good one. He owed his best friend that much.

As the two walked through there camp they found there eyes searching the area, taking in everyone that passed them. Moral was low, but at the same time high. Ever man and Pokémon there had come to realise that there time had come. Men were sat next to the freands and Pokémon. The riders were sat eating there last breakfast with their Dodria while infantry played a last game of catch with their Pokémon. To anyone else the camp would have seemed to be happy and content. But Haling knew that this would all end soon.

Marill shouted out and jumped down, running down towards a Sentret that was sat under a nearby tree. Haling smiled grimmly as he watched the two Pokémon embrace before Marill sat next to Sentret, their hands remaining conneted. He had always know that there was something going on between the two, but Marill had allways denied it. But now it seemed that they saw there was no point in hiding it. Afterall, they probably wont be alive in the morning.

………………………

"Slaves of the emperor" Haling growled as a lone rider appeared into view. He wore a long red cloak and a belt which held verious scrolls and papers. "I come to you now in the hope of peace; no blood has to be spilt this day. I come to give you the wonderfull option to join our allience. You will be welcomed as heros by our leaders and treated as one of our own. There will be no gruge against you or your family. Despite what ever your tyrant of an emperor has told you, we do not want death" The diplomate reached down and produced a large, gold scroll from within his cloak. He smiled as he raised it above his head as if it was somesort of trophy of holy relic. "All you have to do is sign this scroll and you will be heros, glorious men of the allience and brothers of peace. Do you want to die here for a emperor that dosent seem to care for human or Pokémon alike? Do you want your familys to pay the price for what you are doing here? Join us and I asure you we will have peace."A eerie silence fell after the diplomat finished his speech. He smiled as he held the parchment out, as if to hand it to them, even though there was at least half a mile between them.

Haling leaned forward and looked across his battle line. His Dodria squeaked under the shift in his amours weight and he patted its left head to reassure it. All across his battle line, people were muttering and arguing. Some were obviously considering taking the rebels up on there offer. Behind the cavelry line were the other Pokémon and the infantry. They had fallen silent but Haling could smell the stench of fear coming from them. He would have to do something or the battle line would fall apart here and now.

"Come on men!" he called, raising his sword above his own head in an act of mock glory. "Are we going to allow this rebel scum to threaten our loved ones and our Pokémon? They have come here to take our lives, that much we know. But now they tell us that we must surrender our honour if our familys are to live. I don't know about you but I'm not going to allow them to get away with that. So, are we going to fight with honour? Or are we going to run like Abra's?"

Haling couldn't help but smile as his men scremed that they would fight. They swung their swords, banged them against shields and screamed war crys. From behind the roars and screams of the Pokémon could be heard. The screams of dozens of different types of Pokémon mixed together, forming an allmighty scream of war.

The diplomat seemed to be frozen in place for a second, before he pulled on his reigns and retreated back behind the cannion walls. Haling's army continued to cheer for couple more minutes before the finnaly fell silent. The men looked down as they prepared themselves for what was about to come.

Then there was silence. The only noise was the faint blow of the find and the odd grunt from one of the Pokémon.

Then came the drums.

It was faint at first, but the sound was unmistakable. The Rebels army was on the move. Haling sighed as he patted his Doduo again. He heard a faint squeak behind him and turned to see Marill running up to him.

"Marill what are you doing here?"

"Marill?" The little blue mouse like creature looked up at him in confusion. Haling went silent as he read its face. The Pokémon seemed to believe that its place was next to him, no matter what was happening.

"Marill…listen. You have been a good friend to me since I was a child, and for that I thank you. But….I think that you have somewhere that you're needed more then you are with me. I think that Sentret will want you with her when they attack….and I do to. You place is with her"

"Mar….ill" Marill seemed to be frozen in shock.

"No….go to her. I want you to take her away from here and get back to the castle. There you will be safe. I want you to live a quiet life away from all the violence that I have forced you into. Now go"

Haling turned away, not wanting Marill to see the tears that had started to run down his face. He gasped as he heard a faint sob from behind him. Turning he found that Marill was itself crying, its long tail curling up to its body as it sobed. Haling slipped out of his saddle and crouched next to his life long friend. With a faint smile he wrapped his arms around the little blue creautre. Marill gave a little squeek before hugging him back, long tears falling from both.

Finally Haling let go. The drums were getting louder by the second and if Marill didn't leave now then it would be too late. He smiled as he stood up again, never takin his eyes from Marill. Then mouthing a finnaly 'godbye' he climbed back onto his Doduo and nodded. Marill released another sob before turning and running back behind the battle line.

Sighing Haling looked back at the mouth of the canyon. His eyes narrowed as long shilloettes appead on the dirt walls.

When the Rebel army turned the courner, the true horror of what they were facing came to light. There were Pokémon of all shapes and sizes in the force. Some he reqognised and some he had never seen before in his life. He treis to go through a list in his head of the different spices but gave up quickly. Inbetween the Pokémon marched heavily armored men; each carried a sword and shield and wore head-to-toe armour. Every piece of amour in the army was bathed in a deep red, the exact opposite from the light green the imperial army wore.

Without even stopping, the lead rebel raised his sword, screamed and charged forward. Within a second, the rest of the army took up the battle cry and charged at them.

Haling cursed and raised his own sword. With a great dry he pulled the reigns on his Doduo and charged, the cry and thudding of boots and claws on the dirt telling him that his army was following suit.

The only sound was the clash of feet against the ground as the two armies charged at each other. Over head the falp of giant wings could be heard as flying Pokémon took into the air, there talons opening in preparation.

Then with an allmighty crash, the two armys met.

………………..

"Damn, that dosent sound good"

"Just keep you're ears covered and try not to think of it."

Henry tightened the strapps on his helemt as he cursed. He looked around the large cave entrance in an attempt to find something to distract him, eventually coming across the wooden door that stood, bolted shut at the edge of the cave. Though he knew it was impossible, he sensed eyes watching him from behind the door, but the only thing behind the door was the shadow crystal. The only sound that he could here was the sound of clashing metal, rock and fire and the screams of diying men. His hand tighted around the hilt of his sword as he watched the smike rising from where the battle was being fought. From the smoke he could see the shapes of Pokémon flying around, breathing fire, shooting miniture tornadoes and the like. They were fighting to the death. He hated having to watch while his freands fought and died for the crystal. Biting back another curse he turned to his companion.

"We should be there Mike and you know it. We should be there fighting, not standing on the sideline."

"You know that our orders are to defend the crysatl for as long as possible. If we can hold it till reinforcements come…."

"But they will never come and you know it. We have been forsaken in this place, and why? To guard a stupid rock"

"You know that the shadow crystal has special powers….."

"Have you ever seen these powers? The only power I have seen are those infernal dreams"

Both men winched at the memorey. Since the two had come to the post three weeks before, they had had nothing but nightmares night after night. Each one showing a creature of darkness laughing against a burning city.

Then a massive explosion erupted next to them as a rebel Chairzard sored past them, fire spraying from its mouth. It turned as shot down to attack them again but was cut short by a bolt of lightning smashing into its head. The Chairzard screamed in pain as it fell and smashed into the ground nearby. The two gaurds cheered as a swarm of Magnemite flew over head, screeching and cheering they flew back to the battle.

"How long do you think they're going to be able to hold?"

"Not long….not long at all"

The pair fell into silence as they watched the fire spreading and convulsing as the battle raged. Every second felt like an age as they heard the screams and cries from the battle. The flying Pokémon eventually disappeared from view as they were shot down, leaving the sky's dominated by the columns of smoke.

Suddenly Mike's nose twitched and he began to sniff the air. He walked towards the edge of the cave and cursed. Backing away he grabbed Henry and pulled him behind cover, drawing his sword. Henry craned his neck in order to see what was happening that had scared Mike so much.

The air was slowly ripping apart by a giant purple vortex. Great strands of a lighter purple swam around like planets around a great, dark sun. Then dark shapes seemed to grow out of the vortex, marching out of the purple like an army of silhouettes. As they marched into the grass, the darkness melted away to revile the deep red of the rebel army's armor. They marched in two single-file rows, at the lead of the column stood a single shoulder carrying a large flag. The flag seemed to glow with psychic energies, the image of a bent spoon seeming to ripple as if they were looking at it through some unseen steam. On each side of the column a couple of Alakazams materialized, long spoons bending and reforming again and again in there long arms as they closed the vortex behind them.

"Damn" Henry cursed as he ducked back behind the rock "They've gone and teleported an entire battalion right next to us. That battle is nothing more than a distraction."

"Yer, and a pretty good one too. Haling won't be able to get the men back here in time."

"What do we do then?"

"Find a way to make them think the crystal is somewhere else and send a message to the commander"

…………………

Haling grunted as his Doduo jumped ontop of a dead Donphan. It then jumped on top of a nearby Bayleaf, its long claws digging into its neck, drawing a stream of blood as it jumped off again. He swung his sword, decapitating a rebel pike man that had been stood too close to where he landed.

Kicking the Doduo he ran into another cluster of archers. The men scattered as he charged them, throwing themselves to the floor cursing. He ran through the group, gutting a couple of men before turning and charging back into the fray.

He shouted and slammed into a rebel rider and swung his sword in a killing move. But the rider deflected the blow with his own sword and swung back. Haling parried the blow and the two began exchanging blow after blow. There mounts shook violently as the two Doduo's began, pecking and tearing at each other. The rebels Doduo screamed as Haling's clamped its beak around its left neck, a small treacle Po of blood slipping from its mouth. The Pokémon whimpered before one of its legs began to give way, throwing the rider off balance. Taking his chance, Haling screamed a battle cry before swinging his sword and decapitating the rider. The headless body toppled from the Doduo with a dull thud, crushed seconds later by the corpse of its mount.

Haling sighed as he used the moment's relief to look at the battle that was raging around him. They wouldn't hold for much longer, that was for sure. On all sides his men were dying, there Pokémon falling along with them. No matter how many of the rebels they killed, there were always two more to take their place and his lines were running thin. In just a hour or so, everyone of them would be dead.

Then a small explosion seemed to erupt to the west. Haling looked and cursed as he saw a small column of smoke rising from near where he had placed the crystal. They Rebels must have found a way around there line. He had to get everyone back there to make their stand.

"Retreat" he bellowed, not entirely sure if anyone could hear him over the clash of metal on metal and other surfaces. "Fall back to the crystal, we will make our stand there"

And with a final cry, he pulled his Doduo around and ran back towards the resting place of the shadow crystal.

…………….

"Damn…get going. Fall back to the crystal" Mike shouted as he ran from the burning gun powder. "The powder has accidently detonated; we must fall back to the shadow crystal" With a grunt he threw himself behind a large rock and gave Henry a cocky smile. "Do you think it worked?"

Henry crept forward and peeked behind the rock. A second later he threw himself back cursing, just in time to avoid a psychic ball that flew past him, blowing a tree in half. "Yep, it worked, there coming now. So should we….err….run?"

"Lets"

With a cry the two stood and began to run, screaming about how they were going to the crystal, but running the complete other way. They didn't stop to check that the rebels were following, relying on the sounds of shouting and cursing to tell them that their plan was working.

…………….

It took Haling six minutes to get to the Shadow Crystal.

By the time he got there the place was disserted. A small fire burned by the entrance where they had kept their gun powder. He dismounted and walked over to the door that sealed the crystal, great relief taking him as he saw that the door remained intact, with no sign of any forced entry.

So must have meant that the men he had placed here had found a way to distract the rebels, but for how long he didn't know so he would have to do what he came to do quickly.

When he had been tasked with the defence of the crystal he had been told that if ever he had no hope of stopping it from falling into enemy hands then he would have to seal it underground, were no one would dare to look.

Sighing he turned to the group of survivors that had followed him. A couple of them were a Steelix and a Rhydon; they should be enough to seal the cave.

………………

"Err…Mike, they aren't following us anymore"

"What!"

The two guards spun round to see a dark purple vortex caving in on itself as it disappeared.

"Great…they must have realised what we were doing and gone back to where the crystal really is"

Without another word, the two drew their swords and began to run back towards the crystal, praying that Haling had got there in time.

………………

"Incoming"

Haling spun and cursed again as a vortex opened up in front of him. Out of it came rebel soldiers, all armed and dangerous. With a cry, the last of his men charged them, hoping to buy the Pokémon some time.

It was a blood bath.

The tired men didn't stand a chance against the rebel elites. Their mad swings hit nothing but shields before they felt the sharp stings of swords being stabbed into their stomachs. An Alakazam materialized in fount of one man and struck him with a swirling, dark purple ball. The man screamed before being disintegrated, his skeleton becoming visible for a split second before he disappeared entirely.

The rebels looked up and cried their war cry as they saw what the Pokémon were doing and charged them.

The Steelix turned and smashed its way underground as the Alakazams began to fire upon them. The Rhydon wasn't so fast and a purple orb exploded in its face, the Pokémon stumbled back before falling to the ground with a dull thud, its brain having been ripped from its body and sent to the far corners of the warp.

As the soldiers began to advance the ground ripped open beneath them. The giant head of the Steelix erupted from the ground and took one of the Alakazams in its mouth. With a great roar it bit down and snapped the psychic Pokémon in half, it swung its head and sent the top half flying into the wall, crushing two soldiers beneath it. It then turned back to go underground again but was caught in the back by the remaining three Alakazams. The giant steel-type screamed in agony as it smashed to the floor. Its eyes seemed to be sucked into its head as the vortex opened inside of it, leaving nothing more than a crumbling pile of metal and rock.

The rebel soldiers cheered as they began to make their way back up to the door. Haling himself posed little oppression to them as one of the Alakazams used its powers to lift him into the air and smashing against the wall, leaving him unconscious.

………….

"Oh, great"

Mike and Henry stopped at the edge of the cave. The door had been blown off its hinges and now lay useless on the stone floor. Outside the cave it seemed that the survivors had made their final stand. About thirty men and Pokémon lay dead, with not a single rebel lying with them.

From inside the cave they could hear the rebels talking and laughing. They were joking about how easily they had taken the shadow crystal and what they were going to do with the power that they thought it would give them.

"Any more great ideas?" Henry asked

"No"

Then the pair heard a faint moan coming from near the cave entrance. Running over they found commander Haling lying on the floor, a small line of blood running down from the back of his head. He opened his eyes slightly and gave them a reassuring smile. "It looks worse than it is" he muttered as he used their shoulders as supports to pull himself back up to his feet.

"Sir…the rebels have taken the crystal. We have failed"

"No…not yet. We can still seal the crystal underground, but I must do it alone. I want you two to go back to the fortress and tell the queen that we have sealed the crystal and that the rebels will be going there next"

………………

"I'm telling you, with this baby we are going to take over the rest of the empire within the week."

"Yep, and then we will be the big heroes"

The Rebel men began to laugh as they looked up at three Alakazams. The Pokémon were stood with their eyes closed, mentally probing the crystal for a way around the dark shield that seemed to glow around it. It would have been a lot faster if they had still had the fourth Alakazam but they had lost it in there assault on the cave entrance. They could wait, it wouldn't be long before the last of the imperial soldiers were cut down by their army.

"Alaka…..ALAKAZAM"

The men turned as the nearest Pokémon began shout and wave its spoons around. Its large, yellow head nodded to the other two and together they began to summon large purple balls in front of them. Then with a roar they threw their arms forward and long beams of psychic energy erupted from the balls, smashing into the shadow crystal at three different points in an explosion of black and purple. After a few minutes the Pokémon stopped firing and collapsed to the floor with exhaustion.

The crystal seemed completely unaffected. It continued floating in mid-air, the exact same as it was when they had first found it. One of the men began shouting at the Pokémon to stop messing around and get the crystal open but they just ignored him, not taking their eyes from the crystal.

Suddenly there was a loud crack, and a large tear ripped through the side of the shadow crystal. There was a low hiss of air escaping and then a faint rumbling sound, almost like laughter.

"What have you done?"

The rebels turned to see an imperial soldier standing by the ruined door. the lone man bore a look of sheer terror on his face as he watched the thin strain of black smoke that had begun to seep from the crystal. The mist fell to the floor and seemed to build up, growing in strength and becoming sold as it fell. Haling cursed and began screaming for them to run but the rebels ignored him, seemingly mesmerized by the swirling blackness. After a couple of minutes the dark mist stopped and the puddle beneath the crystal seemed to be absorbed by the stone floor, leaving no trace of itself as it went.

"What the hell have you done?" Haling muttered as he began to walk forward. The rebels drew their swords and moved to block his path.

"We have released the thing that will aid us in this war; we have unleashed your doom"

"No you idiot. The thing that you have just released has no loyalty to anyone other than itself. We have to seal it again before it's too late"

"Wrong imperial scum. This Pokémon will lead us to victory after victory and to a new age of……"

Before the soldier could say anything else a column of darkness began to rise from the floor. It solidified and took the shape of a long dark arm. Then it swung in a long ark and sliced through the man's neck. There was a small spray of blood as the body hit the floor. The other rebels cried out and began to back away, looking frantically left and right, searching for the invisible attacker. Then a large pool of darkness spread around the dead body, large tendrils wrapping around it and pulling it into the darkness. It sank in with a low groan his armour bending and giving way under the pressure of the tendrils before the darkness disappeared again.

The men cursed and cried out as another two arms of darkness erupted from the stone floor and cut two more men apart, there broken body's being absorbed by the darkness the same as the last. Haling shouted for them to get across the room but the darkness seemed to hear it and a large pool opened in front of them. A deep laughter seeming to echo of the walls.

"You have to order the Pokémon to close the crystal; it's too weak to survive outside fully at the moment. That's why it's taking the bodies, it's trying to regain its power, you have to seal it now"

The surviving men nodded and relayed the orders as they tried to fend off the attacking arms of darkness, but the swords would just pass through the arms like mist. There seemed to be a pattern to how they were attacking, one man would die on the left then on the right a beat later, then the left would wait for a couple of seconds as the bodies were consumed by the spreading darkness before the pattern started again, there was no way the men could defend themselves.

With great cries the Alakazams raised their spoons and began to chant, large beams of psychic energy shooting out and smashing into the crystal. the darkness roared in fury and a arm wrapped around the leg of the Alakazam furthest from the door. The Pokémon screamed as it was dragged down, still alive, into the bottomless pool of nothingness. Upon seeing the fate of their companion the other Alakazams doubled their efforts to close the rip in the crystal, the crack closing painfully slowly.

"Defend the Pokémon" one of the soldiers shouted and the men ran to the aid of the Alakazams, two of them being cut down by the swinging arms. The screamed as the pool engulfed there bleeding bodies.

Finally the crack was nearly sealed.

The darkness screamed with rage as it swung its arms. Slashing a second Alakazam in half. Then it retracted, forming a single large puddle of blackness. The men screamed as a dark shape began to rise from it, a long white tip, seeming to flicker like fire on its head. The shape began to solidify as two large, pale blue eyes peered from its featureless face.

"You fools will suffer" a deep face rasped from it, seeming to not entirely come from the physical world. It raised its arms and laughed as large balls began to grow from them. "Dark Void" it screamed as it threw its arms forward, sending the balls flying at the last Alakazam. They exploded around its head and sent the Pokémon flying backwards, smashing into the wall. As the dust cleared the Pokémon was lying on the floor, thrashing around as if caught inside some terrible nightmare.

"Now we can't seal the crystal"

"Were all dead"

Haling sighed as he looked at the dark figure that had begun to hover a couple of feet above the ground.

Before the guards could say anything else, Haling burst into a run. He roared with rage as he slammed himself into the figure and forced it towards the crystal. Haling screamed as he threw his entire body weight against the creature until it's back was pressed against the crack.

"Alakazam fire!"

Haling managed to force a small smile as he felt the psychic blow smash into his back.

"You going back to your prison monster" he shouted as he looked into the pale eyes.

"Then you're going with me" The dark arms wrapped around Haling's chest and pulled him through the crack as the darkness once again turned into a mist disappeared into the crystal.

With an explosion of purple and black light the crack disappeared, sealing the captain and the monster inside. Then a great rumble could be heard as large chunks of rock began to fall from the roof sealing the entrance as the rebels tried to escape.

By the time the rest of the rebel army arrived at the cave, there was no sign of the cave.

………………….

"…and so the crystal is presently hidden from the enemy, far out of their reach. Were it will remain for years to come"

A long silence fell across the hall as Henry stood down from the stand, facing the. Royal jury as he awaited his fate. When he and Mike had arrived back at the castle they had been originally considered traitors and brought before the jury to tell their story.

The, to their great relief, the queen nodded. "It seems that the two of you did admirably during you're darkest hour and bought your commander the time he needed to save us all, for that I thank you. May I please see the letter that he gave you?"

Mike nodded and passed the rolled parchment that Haling had given him before going into the cave.

The queen sighed loudly as she read the letter.

You're highness.

It is with a heavy heart that I write to these words, knowing that they will be my last. Despite our best efforts the rebels have breached the tomb of the shadow crystal and are trying to release the Pokémon that resides it.

I will give my life in order to prevent it from rising and beg of you to destroy all mention of it from our history, lest some other tyrant should attempt to find it and use it for their own needs.

I will die today so that others may live. I will give my life in order to prevent Darkrai from rising and plunging the world into darkness. Don't forget what we have died for and you will not repeat it.

Goodbye.

P.S. My Marill should be arriving there soon, so please look after it.


	2. Chapter 1

Well I'm back with a new chapter.

After the strange events of the prologue we now arrive in the present time and meet the usual gang of Ash, Dawn and Brock on their journey. I don't want to give away to much about the story but in this chapter the tone is light and funny, but the tone will gradually grow darker as events come into play and the darkness rises so if you don't like dark stories then I'll tell you when the story is going to go dark and if you don't like light stories then just wait for another couple of chapters.

One thing I want to point out is the relationships that may appear in the story. First of all I have got a couple of friends who are fans of the DawnxAsh relationships and a couple who are fans of the MistyxAsh one (I personally am with the MxA). Now in order to keep both groups happy I have put hints to both relationships into the story but have not fully identified one.

Now with that said I just want to say enjoy the story and thank you for reading.

**Chapter 1**

"Wow Brock, this is great!"

Ash Ketchum practically screamed as he threw himself at the table in front of him. Without even looking up he threw his face into the food and began chewing and ripping at it.

On the other side of the table his two companions watched with a mixture of disgusted and slightly impressed expressions. Brock simply smiled slightly as he began to eat, much more civilised then his companion. He looked up and shook his head in amusement as Dawn tilted her head, starring in confusion at the boy opposite her, who seemed to be eating the table as well as the food.

"Still haven't got used to Ash eating then?" he asked, not being able to stop himself laughing slightly.

"I still can't work out how that's even possible" she mumbled slightly as she looked down at her own food. Brock frowned slightly, he couldn't decide if Dawn was blushing when ever she said something like that. It looked like she was she always put her face out of his view in-order to stop him seeing.

A faint ring made Brock turn and walk over to the small cooker that he had set up on the grass. He smelled the stew that was cooking inside and chuckled again to himself as he pored it into a bowl. He walked over to a large mat where the trio had placed there Pokémon.

"Grubbs up" he decleared as he put a bowl in front of each of the creatures that were chattering amoungst themselves. The Pokémon cheered as they began to eat, each reflecting there trainers eating style somewhat. The most obvious example would have to be the Buneary that sat next to Pikachu. While Buneary chewed her food slowly, Pikachu was divourering it at the same speed as Ash, causing Buneary to shair the same expression as Dawn. Smiling slightly, Buneary picked up a chunk of meat and held it out for Pikachu. The yellow mouse starred for a second before taking it, throwing it in its mouth and turning back to its own food. Buneary smiled again before starting to eat aswell.

Brock looked up at the sound of Ash's groans. The young trainer was rubbing his stomach, as he leaned away from the table. The plates in frount of him were covered in scrapes of food and chicken bones. The only thing he hadnt taouched was Dawn's plate (Thankfully), who was sat starring open-mouthed at him. Ash grinned stupidly as he leaned back and fell off the chair. He hit the floor with a faint thud and laughed loudly.

"That was great" he laughed as he looked at the sky, before closing his eyes and seeming to fall asleep. Dawn seemed to try and recover herself as she saw Brock watching and finished the last of her food, before standing and going to where the Pokémon were sat.

…………….

Brock sighed as he looked at the large map that he had placed on top of the table. Dawn leaned over his shoulder in order to get a better view and also in an attempt to drown out Ash's snoring.

The young trainer hadn't moved for two hours, his legs still on the chair that he had been sat on before. The only difference was the Pikachu that had curled up to his chest and fallen asleep with him.

"Do we have far to go then?"

"I think we have another two days walk before we get to Shadow city. The food supply should easily hold up till then so long as we keep it hidden from Ash. The Poke chow however will run out within those two days so we can't really afford to get sidetracked again"

Dawn smiled slightly at the thought of how easily they would get distracted by a random event and completely lose track of where they were going. It happened at least once a couple of days and, though they always made a new friend, it would cost them valuable time in their quest to get to the next town before Ash worked out the combination to the lock on the food case.

"If we don't want to run out of food, you'll have to stop eating it all" Brock and Dawn both sighed as Ash sat up, he smiled stupidly as he placed his cap back on his head. Pikachu cried out as he ran down his arm, perching carefully at the end of the table. "So….what do we know about this 'Shadow City' anyway? Sounds like something out of a bad horror film to me"

"It's not really mentioned in the guide book that much as there's nothing special there. Brock spoke almost robotically as he read from the guide book that he always kept with him "There is a competition held every month, and it has a unique Gym but other than that the most significant thing about it is the fact that the children keep having nightmares, but that's just been explained as their minds getting fixed on a legend."

"What legend is that?"

"The legend of the Shadow Crystal. But that's all that it says. It doesn't tell you what it is or where it comes from."

"Well then" Ash called as he slammed his fist onto the table "We are just going to have to go there and find out wont we? We haven't had a good mystery for a while and I need to get some more things from the Pokémart anyway. Plus this Gym sounds interesting"

Before either Brock or Dawn could reply he jumped up, allowed Pikachu to sit on his shoulder again and walled over to where the Pokémon were playing.

……………..

"Are we there yet?"

Dawn silently swore to kill Ash in his sleep as she covered her ears. The young trainer had been whining about his hunger for the past day. Not that he was getting any sympathy from either of his companions. After all it was 'technically' his fault that they had run out of food. But he felt rather proud of himself all the same seeing as he had finally cracked the one obstacle that he had never been able to cross. The lock to the food chest. Not that Dawn or Brock had seen it that way of course. He had got a right telling when they found Pikachu and himself sleeping next to the empty chest, Ash using the empty wrappers as a, not so comfortable, pillow.

"There's another half a day's walk yet Ash" Brock sighed as he folded up his map and placed it back in his pocket. "So if you wouldn't mind shutting up to we get there I'm sure Dawn and I would be most grateful"

"Pika-pi"

Ash sighed as he looked up at the yellow mouse that sat at its usual post on his shoulder. It had it nose pointed up to the sky and seemed to be sniffing, with a faint twitch; one of its ears went rigid as it listened to something. The trio stopped in their tracks as they watched the little Pokémon search the landscape for something.

"What have you found Pikachu?"

Ash knelt down as Pikachu jumped from his shoulder and landed on the floor, its eyes never leaving the mountain range that rose from behind the trees. Ash frowned as he bent down and tired to see what it was looking at.

"Pikachu?"

Pikachu blinked suddenly and looked at him, its eyes seeming shocked as if Ash had woken it from a deep day dream. It starred for another second before blinking again and climbing back onto his shoulder, as if nothing had happened.

Ash turned to see Dawn and Brock looking up at the sky. He gasped as he saw that they sky was full of Pokémon. Swarms of Staravia, Pidgey, Chatot, Noctowls and other Pokémon that Ash didn't have time to identify filled the sky, howling and chirping as they flew from the large mountain that loomed in the distance.

"I've never seen that many bird Pokémon in one place before" Dawn said, having to raise her voice over the screams and cries of the Pokémon "It's amazing"

"It's damn loud" Ash called as he helped Pikachu to cover its sensitive ears from the noise.

Brock mealy stood still, staring at the horde as they flew past and became a dark cloud in the distance.

When the sound finally stopped the group stood stunned. Pikachu gave out a sigh of relief as they ringing in its ears began to cease and gave Ash a reassuring smile, who gave it a small pat on the head. Dawn simple stood and watched the dark smudge in the blue sky as the Pokémon began to disappear into the distance.

"Ash, can I borrow you're Pokédex for a second." Ash blinked as Brock stretched his arm out, opening his hand out for Ash to give him the Pokédex. Brock had never asked Ash to give him his Pokédex, it was his most prized possession in the world and he had never let it out of his sight since the day Professor Oak had given it to him.

"Err….sure Brock"

Ash seemed reluctant as he pulled his Pokédex out of his pocket and placed it in Brocks outstretched hand. Before Ash let go Brock snatched it from him and began to flick through the menus on its screen. Dawn turned as she heard Pikachu mutter and saw that the young trainer had sub-concisely moved forward to a place where he could easily stop Brock from running and protect the Pokédex if the need should arise. Though Ash would trust Brock with his life, he still refused to allow anyone to touch the Pokédex without moving to protect it.

A tense air seemed to fall as Brock flicked through the data on the Pokédex. Dawn felt herself tense as he tapped on a button a bit too hard and one of Ash's arms raised slightly, the trainers' eyes never once leaving the screen.

Finally Brock sighed and gently handed the Pokédex back to Ash. Ash seemed to relax and grinned like a child who had thought he had got no present on Christmas only to find that he had got the brand new Palkia action figure. Both Dawn and Pikachu sighed with relief as he placed it back into his inner jacket pocket and carefully closed the zip.

After a second Ash looked up at Brock, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. As if reading his question from Ash's eyes he sighed and looked back at where the horde of Pokémon had been. "It's rare for so many different Pokémon to fly in such massive numbers. I don't know what happened but you're Pokédex says that they only do that if there was something on the psychic range."

"Psychic range?" Dawn muttered "But none of those Pokémon were Psychic"

"Yes. But it is believed that all Pokémon have got some sought of connection to a psychic level of mind. Sought of like a sixth sense. All Pokémon have it but psychic Pokémon are the type that has found a way to harness this power and use it to their advantage in battle. Like back when there was that battle with Lugia. Remember how all those Pokémon came and gathered at the fight, no one told them to go, they just knew that they were going to be needed there and came."

"So you mean they can see things that we can't?"

"Not so much see as feel. You saw how Pikachu looked at that mountain before the bird Pokémon began to fly; I think that it sensed something on the physic level. I don't know what it could have been but it must have been something bad judging by the way those Pokémon reacted, it can't be anything good."

Suddenly a loud car horn pierced the silence the three jumped. Turning they saw a long red car appearing out from behind the trees. It was obviously both new and expensive as he silently drove towards them. The roof had been retracted and lay folded on top of the boot, leaving the car clear and fast. From the driver's seat, a woman smiled and waved at them as she pulled over next to them.

Ash and Dawn sighed as they heard Brock with a cry of joy as he saw the women close up. She was wearing a loose tank top and tight jeans that seemed to have been slashed across the knee. Her thigh long blond hair waved lazily in the wind as she got out of car.

She opened her mouth as if to say something but closed it instantly as Brock grabbed her hand and knelt down on one knee in front of her.

"Oh fair maiden of……" he began before one of his Pokéballs activated its self and a Croagunk appeared out of nowhere. The Croagunk seemed to shake its head as its claws began to glow a light purple and it stabbed Brock in the back. Brock gave a squeal of pain before collapsing to the ground. Croagunk sighed again as it grabbed one of Brocks legs and pulled him away to recover.

"Man, Croagunks getting really fast at that now." Ash muttered as he watched the Pokémon pull Brock away. Dawn smiled slightly before turning back to the new comer and crossing her arms.

"Who are you anyway?"

The women starred after Croagunk in shock for another second before recovering herself and looking back at them. "Oh sorry, I'm Janise pleased to meet you"

"JANISE! What a beautiful name!" Brocks voice yelled from behind a nearby rock before Croagunk shouted out and Brock screamed again as he was hit with poison jab again.

"Err….is he going to be all right? Janise asked, looking worryingly over to the source of the commotion as Croagunk emerged, gave them the thumps up and disappeared again.

"He's used to it" Ash chuckled before turning back to face her, he looked at dawn quickly and saw that she hadn't even turned, her eyes fixed on Janise as if she thought she was about to attack them.

"Just what do you want?"

"Well I heard that you were heading out to Shadow city and thought you might want a lift. It's not safe in these woods anymore, the Pokémon have gotten rather restless, and there have been several attacks."

"I knew there was something going on here"

Janise seemed generally impressed as Brock emerged from behind the rock. He seemed completely recovered from Croagunks attack, albeit with a limb in the leg that he had been hit in.

"How in the world can you be up and about? You just got hit twice by that Croagunk."

"Well the first fifty or so times I was out for hours. But now…..I guess I'm becoming slightly immune to the poison."

Ash laughed again as he saw the look of confusion on Janise's face. He had always enjoyed it when people first saw the way Croagunk kept Brock at bay. Usually Dawn liked it too but right now she wasn't taking her eyes of Janise.

"What makes you think that we would want a lift?"

"Well...I…I saw you all looking at the sky after those bird Pokémon and thought that you might want to get to the city before there's another disturbance. If there is anymore then they might start closing down the shops and Gym"

"Shut down the Gym!" Ash seemed visibly shocked as he heard this and pushed his way through "They can't do that, how can I become the greatest trainer in the world if there's a Gym I haven't beaten? I need to get to that Gym and beat it now!"

"Hey, calm down" Janise said, her arms rose as if expecting Ash to run straight at her "The Gym leaders aren't going to let it close any time soon. They put lots of effort into building it and ruling it so I wouldn't worry about it. Also you might not want to get so cocky, I've seen those two put a lot of good trainers back in their place, no matter how much choice or advantage they were given"

"What do you mean choice?"

"Oh you'll find that out when you try it out"

"Well it's settled then" Ash declared, raising his fist in front of his face as if in a strange, cheesy cartoon "I'm going to Shadow City Gym and I'm going to get myself a new badge. You up to it Pikachu?"

"Pikachu!"

"Ash don't you think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself?" Dawn said, placing a hand on Ash's shoulder and pulling him back. "We don't even know who this woman is and you're just about to go off with her?"

"Her face tells me we can trust her" Brock declared, withdrawing Croagunk before it could strike him again and Ash simply shouted something about a Gym as they climbed into the car.

Dawn sighed in frustration as she followed, her hands reaching towards her bag and the Pokéballs that lay inside. "Maybe one day they listen to me" she muttered as she opened the door and climbed into the car and the group drove off towards Shadow City.

…………………….

Just above the forest tree line a dark shape could be seen floating slowly along the wind streams. The large head of a Meowth grinned at the sea of green below and seemed to purr with the faint sound of creaking that followed each swing from the small basket that hung from below the hot air balloon. Two human figures could be seen leaning over the edge of the basket, scanning the forest for their lost prey.

"Great how we going to keep up with them now. That cars going to be impossible to follow through the forest" the male sighed heavily before sitting down and leaning against the side of the basket. "Jessie, we've been following the twerps for three damn weeks without food or entertainment. How long are we going to go on like this? I want to sleep in a bed for once!"

"Quit you're wining James" Jessie said as she too went to sit down "We've gone longer without food. A couple more weeks won't hurt you"

The two sighed heavily before closing their eyes and going silent.

"Well if you two weren't so lazy we would have got that Pikachu by now and we would have had all the food we could have wanted"

Jessie opened one of her eyes and focused on the Pokémon that stood next to her. The cat like Pokémon stood with its arms folded and its left foot tapping the floor in irritation.

"I don't see you working hard Meowth. Why don't you do some watching for a while and let James and I get some rest?"

Meowth opened its mouth to reply but simply sighed and collapsed too. Muttering about its own hunger.

Their they lay for an unknown amount of time, whining and groaning about twerps and food. Two humans and a Pokémon together in starvation and irritation towards a single group of children, floating across the landscape in a giant balloon. The landscape of a large city looming in the distance being their only hope for food and work.

A/N

OK, that's the first chapter up and running and the return to the present. At the moment I am not entirely happy with the Team Rocket part and so will probably rewrite it whenever I think of a way to improve it (If you have any ideas please, let me know). Chapter 2 and 3 are nearly finished so you can expect updates soon as well as another Pokémon story which I will explain more in chapter 3 due to the events that happen in it.

Also I have begun considering doing a short series explaining the history of general Hailing but will probably leave that till I'm finished this story.

Chapter 2 should be up soon.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Hi everybody, sorry about the long wait here but I've been having some real trouble at home that I'm not going to go into. Everything is resolved now however so there shouldn't be any more long waits.

errrr. This bit at the top of the chapter was meant to be at the end of chapter one, replacing the bit with team rocket. But due to the fact that I only came up with it as I was writing this chapter it wasn't. It still not my best work but its much better than the last one at least. So here is the alternative ending to chapter one. PM me if you think I should just re-upload chapter one with it at the end. Don't get me wrong, team rocket will feature in the story but it won't be a very big part, mostly because if they did then they would probably have to die. So yer, imagine this at the end of chapter one and remember to R&R. Thanks for reading and enjoy.

Oh damn I forgot about the disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, I do own copies of several of the games and one kick ass team. I do claim ownership of the characters of Janise and the city of Shadow City and the gym leaders Jack and Mike and the personalities and names of their Pokémon, not there species which belongs to Nintendo, I think.

Now that that's out of the way, enjoy.

Chapter 1.5

As the car disappeared across the horizon, two figures slowly emerged from the undergrowth of the nearby trees. Both were of a slender and feminine build but held the posture of arrogance that wasn't found in many people. Though one had short hair that glistened silver in the sun, the other had hair that didn't seem to be possible in the laws of physics. On each side of her head was a massive 'bun' of blonde hair that each alone managed to stand as wide as her head, making her shadow look like some terrible, three headed monster. Even as they watched the car leave, the one with the blonde buns began to try and lift them up with her white gloved hands.

"Man this wind is really messing with my hair" she wined as she tried to keep it in place, her eyes closing in an attempt to protect them from a nonexistence wind. She went ridged as she heard her companion sigh "What's up?"

"Nothing" was the only reply she got as the other women bent down and picked up a small piece of Pokémon food that lay scatted among the blades of grass "Did those kids looked familiar to you Annie?"

"Familiar?" the blonde haired women, Annie, repeated, blinking in confusion before seeming to realise something. "Well, yer now that you mention it Oakly, I'm sure I've seen that Pikachu somewhere before"

"Think back to Altamar city. Remember that kid with the Pikachu that stopped us. Well I'm sure that's them, except it looks like the girls been replaced with a different one"

"Wow" Annie muttered, seemingly in a daze "Who would have thought they would be here? Do you think they could cause a problem for the bosses plan?"

"I don't see how. We've already got most of the teams here and begun the excavation so if anything there too late to stop the…."

"Ursaring!"

Oakly's eyes shot up as the shape of a giant bare appeared within the darkness between the trees from which they had just themselves been hiding in. It roared at them and slashed its claws through the air in an intimidating display of anger. Its eyes seemed shrunken and waivered as it starred at them, as if it had been driven to the verge of insanity by some force that only it could feel.

"Well" Oakly smirked as the Pokémon stumbled out of the tree line. "Looks like the drillings been a little too much for this ugly thing"

"Why hasn't it just left like the other Pokémon?"

As if to answer Annie's question a couple of Teddiursa appeared at the monsters feet. They hung back and whimpered in fear, but whether in fear of them or the monster there parent had become, Oakly could neither tell nor care. She simple grinned as she pulled out a Pokéball and released a large spider like Pokémon.

"Put them out of their misery Ariados" she said dismissively as she turned and began to walk away, followed by a slightly reluctant Annie. She didn't even blink or turn as her Ariados powered up its poison jab and jumped into the air. The Ursaring gave a roar of rage as it was trapped by the webbing the spider Pokémon shot out before it was abruptly silenced by the spiders poison attack. There was the soft patter of the Teddiursa attempting to flee and the clicking of insecticide legs on tree bark before they too were silenced. The only sign of even noticing the slaughter behind her that she showed was when she lifted her Pokéball and retracted the Ariados.

**Chapter 2**

**Shadow city**

A/N: One more thing before you start; I suck at writing chapters that are just talking because it tends to get a bit, 'this happened and then this happened' and thus get rather boring so please bare with me. You won't regret it once the action starts in chapter three.

The streets of shadow city were alive with activity as Janise slowly manoeuvred her car through the matrix of roads and alleys. She seemed to have taken on a sort of tour guide roll as she pointed out all the main landmarks of the city and told her three companions about the history of the city and of some of the buildings themselves.

On the streets, people and Pokémon alike were moving on their various errands. On one street, a group of builders and a Rhyperior were lifting large steel beams and roughly pinning them up in the rough skeleton of a building before using a couple of Magmar to weld them together.

"That's going to be a new Pokémon store" Janise said as she saw Ash starring at the construction site. "The old one was shut down a while ago after a group of rouge Lairon came down from the mountains and destroyed it. That was the first of the attacks that have been happening here lately, most recent being an Ursaring attack in the forest. We don't know what's causing the Pokémon to get so restless but, as you saw those bird Pokémon do, many have left the area. But that's something to talk about another time; I've got one more stop to show you"

Suddenly Ash seemed to click out of whatever day dream he had been in as he looked up at Janise "Where's that?"

"You'll see" was her only reply before pulling the car back into the road and heading towards the city centre. As she reached the nearby traffic lights however, her eyes flicked up to the top of the construction site and the small bird that was perched on one of the beams.

…………………

Above the building site a small bird like shape could be seen watching the car drive away. A low mechanical whirl followed the turn of its head and the flapping of its wings, each clanking as they slammed back into the small body. When there was another burst of fire from the Magmar, small rivets and mechanical joints were cast into a fiery red glow. For the time it was completely visible, there was no doubt that it was a machine rather than an organic Pokémon. As if to remove any chance of it being real, its right eye began to grow into a large telescope like funnel, the red light within focusing on the car below.

……………….

"And here we are" Janise declared as she pulled the car up next to a tall building. It was far bigger than any of the other buildings in the city and seemed to cast a massive shadow over the rest of the city. Even the main entrance seemed to loom over the group as they began to make their way over to it. The door alone was big enough to fit an Aggron through and the painting of a dark crystal that hung on the far wall seemed to give the glass entrance a dark and foreboding appearance.

"Where are we?" Dawn could be heard muttering as she looked around at the people that were walking around the main hall. Each of them was clad in a smart, black suit that gave them the appearance of being at a funeral or some depressing bank.

"This?" Janise smiled as she turned back to them and spread out her arms in a mimic of a gesture of welcome "This is the business centre of the entire city. Originally called Power tower, it was recently renamed Shadow tower due to the cities heritage and the fact that it casts a massive shadow over the nearby neighbourhoods. It acts as the central banking building and allows the rest of the cities businesses to run without much trouble. They also manage all the legal red tape whenever there is contest being held or when the gym leaders decided that they want to hold one of their 'free battles'

Almost instantly, Ash looked up from the notice bored that he had taken to examining and grinned with a rare look of interest in his eyes. "What do you mean, 'free battles'?"

"Oh it's when the gym leaders higher the city centre for the weekend and hold these mini tournaments. They can be anything from simple tests of strength, beauty or skills to massive battle tournaments that the entire city takes part in. I think you'd like it Ash, it seems to be your kind of thing to do. Why don't you ask the leaders when we get there later? I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you if they had any more planned. But I wouldn't expect them to know, they tend to throw them in a sort of 'spur of the moment' bases"

"Reminds me of someone I know" Dawn muttered behind her as she watched Ash begin talking to Pikachu about Arceus only knows what. As if sensing that he was being watched, the young trainer glanced around the room but for some reason looking in every direction other then towards Dawn, causing the girl to sigh and mutter something about an idiot and his dumb, yellow pet mouse.

To the far end of the room, Brock could be seen flicking through the various leaflets and posters that detailed the different events and locations of the city. His brow was creased into a deep frown as he looked at the image of a dark crystal that seemed to glow on every poster or page of the leaflets. Picking up as many as he could, he made his way back to Janise.

"Hey, Janise. What are all of these crystal symbols? Are they to do with this legend that keeps popping up whenever people are talking about this city?"

"Yep" A certain enthusiasm seemed to fill Janise at the idea of the crystal. She snatched one of the leaflets away from Brock and held it up to her face as if examining it "I take it you don't know about the legend by that question. Basically, about a thousand years ago there was a terrible battle fought in the space where this city now stands. A group of rebels had broken free form the imperial rule of the great empire that had stretched across most of the know regions. Now, the rebels had come to believe that the sacred shadow crystal that was said to rest within the depths of these mountains should be used to create an unstoppable force of war, one that could take the world in a terrible storm of death and fire.

"You see, they got this idea from the belief that a terrible Pokémon slumbered within the shadow crystal, a Pokémon born of pure darkness. No one really knew where the crystal had come from but they did know that anyone who was to sleep near it would be plagued with horrific nightmares, if they slept near it too much; there was even a chance that they would never wake up again. It had already been the focus of many warlords over the years and a council the emperors of old had sealed it within a hidden tomb within the mountains. But the rebels had learned of this tomb and had sent their entire army to capture it.

"There was a terrible battle fought for control of the crystal but the few imperial solders that had been positioned there were swiftly destroyed and the rebels managed to find the crystal and actually released the Pokémon of shadow.

"What happened after that has never truly been decided but it is believed that the commander of the imperial force gave his life to reseal the shadow Pokémon within the crystal after it had turned on the men who had released it, but that's only speculation really.

"You see the queen of the now slowly failing empire had decreed that the crystal be buried within the mountains and that all telling of it be torn from the royal archives. This was to insure that the crystal would pass into legend and no other tyrant would seek to use its power against the world. All knowledge of the crystal was destroyed and we only know what we know of it because of what the solders and survivors of the war had told their children and so on by way of mouth so we can't even be sure that it truly happened.

"Still, it's an amazing story isn't it?"

Janise smiled in approval as she saw the three before her mummer their agreement and even a few claps and grins from the other people in the room that had gathered around her to hear the story. She felt like a nursery teacher from the way she had so many people gathered around her, hanging on her every word. That was the power the legend seemed to hold over the city. No matter how many times they had heard it or what they were doing at the time; everyone would seem to happily drop anything simply to listen to the story, it seemed to turn all of them into children in their excitement.

"Of course the fact that it's been passed down through mostly word of mouth for over two hundred years means that it isn't exactly the most reliable story but no one I've met really seems to care about that"

Another series of mummers of agreement passed over the gathered group before they begun to disperse again, returning to whatever jobs they had been doing before. Slowly, Janise placed the leaflet down upon the table and turned to look back at the three remaining listeners.

"Right" She said finally, a broad grin spreading across her face "Well I think that's about everything I can think of to show you so how about we head towards the Gym? I think Ash will explode if he doesn't get there soon"

"Finally!" was all the boy said as he vanished through the door.

A/N: I know it wasn't the best but things are going to pick up now and I really wanted to get this chapter up so that you wouldn't think that I was dead or something. Expect the next chapter much sooner then this one.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N: I live! Yer, sorry about my recent disappearance but I'm back and with a vengeance!

This chapter introduces some very important characters for me, Jack and Mike, the Gym Leaders of Shadow City. They are, I admit, based on a good friend of mine and myself so I'm affectively putting myself in the story but oh well, (I'm Jack) I own them and the characteristics of their Pokémon (The team we use in the games) but nothing else.

The gym leader Pokémon are how we imagine our own Pokémon to be (Yes we are sad enough to imagine our Pokémon as living things....) The Mime JR and Riolu are the ones that we have become most attached to and thus they are the ones that we have christened our partner Pokémon, I never really felt a bond with my Piplup....As for the layout for the Gym, we decided to make it more of a club for different trainers with each section run by one of our Pokémon. Our gym is much more open than others and is more like a social meeting area then an actual gym.

As for the Pokémon that Ash uses in this chapter, I found a website that gave me a list of the Pokémon that he uses but this has changed since I started writing so I decided to just use my favourites out of his Pokémon. If I've given him a Pokémon that he doesn't have anymore and can't get back if he wanted then just PM me and let me know.

I'm not happy with this chapter but I wanted to get it out of the way because next chapter is the appearance of the villains and then the fun begins so stay tuned.

Hopefully there won't be another long wait for the next chapter because I know have everything planned out for the story but knowing me, no promises...

Chapter 3

Shadow City Gym

"Wow" Ash cried as he looked up at the giant building that loomed over the group. It was the biggest gym he had ever seen, a single wall spanned the length of the entire town square and the roof peaked at the average height of a flying Combee. Long gardens of grass surrounded the different paths that lead up to the Gyms main entrance, home to small groups of Pokémon and other trainers that were playing or resting on the benches or blankets. Ash blinked as he examined the Gym walls. Each of the long brick walls was covered with a painting of a different Pokémon, each Pokémon standing in powerful poses of victory or strength. Finally above the main entrance hung a Pokéball symbol which seemed to glow a deep red with a white centre orb, the light glowing despite it being the middle of the day. Above the symbol, the images of a Mime JR and Riolu smiled out over the grassy planes, almost welcoming the trainers and Pokémon with open arms.

"I take it this is your first time here son" Ash turned to find a smartly dressed man standing behind him. He wore a black bowler's suit and had a small wooden cane held firmly in his white gloved hand. The man smiled before continuing without even waiting for Ash to give a reply to his question. "Yes I see it all the time, this Gym tends to do that to people on their first time, it does catch you of guard. Ha Ha. But anyway, would you be intending to take that Gym on? Do you think you have what it takes to beat our Leaders?"

"You bet I do!" Ash yelled in reply, smiling as Pikachu jumped on to his head, its small feet pushing his cap over his eyes. "Me and Pikachu are going to have those Gym leaders begging for mercy when were finished. And with the rest of my Pokémon they don't stand a chance, and I'll have one more badge to add to my collection"

The old man began to laugh at Ash's declaration and nodded. "Yes I can tell there's something about you son, you have…."

"If you're going to say a big ego then I agree with you completely"

Ash turned and frowned as he saw Brock, Dawn and Janise come up to them. He opened his mouth to protest but decided to let it go as a joke and turned back to the man, who was now beaming back at Janise.

"By Arceus' holy sight!" he said, stretching his arms out and embracing Janise "I haven't seen you in years my girl. Where have you been? I hope the boss has been treating you all right, especially after that incident at lake…"

"I've been fine Grandpa" Janise suddenly shouted a little too load, stopping the old man in mid sentence and seeming to kick him slightly in the shin. "I've gotten quiet a lot of work since then and, as a matter of fact I'm on a job right now"

The man stared in confusion for a second before something seemed to click in his mind and he looked over to the group of trainers that stood next to them, watching their conversation. "Oh, I get you kid. So long as he's not making you do anything _undesirable_ I'm happy for ya. So are these kids' friends of yours then?"

"Yep. Their trainers who are travailing across the world, just to see things that others haven't and to make new friends. They're living the dream many would say"

"Well I wish you the best of luck in wherever that journey takes you my friends" The man smiled and gave a polite bow, holding his hat in his hand, before straitening and checking his watch "As much as I'm enjoying this conversation my friends I really must be going. Places to go, people to see, employers to keep happy and all that. I know that I will be seeing you round some time and look forward to finding out what you make of my work once it is reviled to the public. But I'll leave that to my dear granddaughter to tell you about whenever she gets round to it. So until then my friends, I bid you, farewell"

With that the strange, yet kind, man turned and began to make his way back down the path towards the main city, swaying his cane gently back and forth. He stopped once, to give a baby Hippiny a gently prod back towards its parents, before giving a gentle laugh and continuing back on his stroll.

"Nice guy" Brock observed as he slowly slipped next to Janise again "You didn't tell me…I mean us, that you had relatives living here"

"Well I don't think that it's any of your business is it Brock?" Janise said, a trace of irritation appearing in her voice before she replaced it with her usual smile and turning to face the Gym again "Anyway, back to business Ash. I believe there are a couple of Gym leaders waiting for you in there. And as I'm sure you know, it's rude to keep a leader waiting"

Ash grinned, gave a nod to the group before turning and running straight towards the Gym, Pikachu desperately trying to keep up with him. Dawn and Brock exchanged a glance before slowly following with a distracted looking Janise.

…………………………

The inside of the Gym was nothing like any other he had seen. Paintings covered the walls, showing images of different Pokémon and trainers. On the wall to the far side of the room hung a half a dozen photos of different trainers holding up badges, a team of Pokémon stood triumphantly behind each one. Ash gulped as he saw the strength and level of the Pokémon. It took that much power to beat these Gym Leaders?

"Espe?"

Ash jumped at the cry and spun to see an Espeon walking up to him. It tilted its head as it starred at him, its eyes never blinking or leaving his. Ash backed off a bit as its eyes began to glow purple, the small crystal on its head reflecting his face in an eerie purple glow. They stood like that for a couple of minutes before the small Pokémon seemed to nod and turned to leave, swaying its split tail and seeming to sing slightly.

"What was that all about?" Ash asked as Janise began to laugh.

"That was one of the leader's Espeon. She goes around the building and scans the visitors for any… negative thoughts. It's a good way to help the leaders prevent any members of Team Rocket or Galactic from getting into the building. Apparently it views you as being good and true of heart so you now have complete access to the buildings facilities"

"And what happens if you have got negative thoughts?" Dawn suddenly spoke, her eyes scanning around the room.

"Well, then Umbrion would come and 'keep you out'" As Janise spoke she pointed up to a small ledge that emitted from the wall. On it, a small black Pokémon lay, the yellow rings covering its body glowing slightly in the shadow. It opened one of its yellow eyes slightly as the Espeon jumped up and lay down next to it. Then the two became motionless, as if in a deep sleep, their gentle breathing the only sign of life. Janise smiled slightly before turning and gesturing for the group to follow her.

They entered a long corridor which ran the length of the entire building. Large doors entered into several different areas of the gym, shops, a PokéCentre and several club like areas.

"Hey Dawn" Janise grinned as they reached a large door were a small crowd had begun to gather. "If you join that crowd and head through the main door you'll come across the Gardevoir beauty contest. Should keep you busy while Ash tries his luck. Oh and Brock, I'm not sure what you want to do but I'm sure you can find something. Why don't you take that Croagunk down to Gallade's fighting workshop, it might be able to learn of few tricks there. As for you Ash, head straight down this corridor and you'll come to the Gym. I don't know if you want to, but many trainers go to Kazza's meditation spot to prepare themselves before going in, but its you're choice. I've got I couple of errands I need to run but I'll probably be back in a couple of hours. If I'm not back before you're done, why don't you check out the Butterfree garden?" With that she bid them farewell and left them, he long hair swaying the breeze as the door opened and she disappeared from view.

"Well I don't know about you two" Ash turned suddenly and began making his way down the corridor "but Pikachu and I are going to go get ourselves a new badge. We'll see you later and I can tell you all about the battle"

"Oh great" Dawn sighed as she turned to join the small crowd that Janise had pointed out "Another night of Ash's boasting, what fun"

Brock chuckled before heading in a completely random direction.

…………………………….

It took Ash all of two minutes to get hopelessly lost in the network of corridors that ran through the gym. Pikachu clinking tightly to the top of his head in an attempt to prevent itself from falling and being crushed amongst the crowd of people that moved to and fro within the slightly confined space. Somehow he found that he had managed to miss every single sign and now the only door he could find that lead out of the corridor was a large one that said 'Jack's Research Area'. Ignoring the restricted sign, Ash pushed the door open and stumbled in.

As Ash entered the room, the first thing he saw was a small Totodile playing with a Cyndaquil. They seemed to be playing a game of chaise as they ran around the legs of tables and computers before charging at him and slipping through the gap between his legs, cheering and yelling as they ran. As they vanished down the corridor, they could be seen to climb over legs as other Pokémon in their game, but no-one seemed to care as if they were all used to it.

"Sorry about that, those two don't seem to really have much sense of avoiding people"

Ash turned round to see a boy about his age coming out of the small office in the corner of the room. He wore a long white lab coat and black jeans, the logo of a Pokéball was just visible printed on his shirt through the gap in his coat and a pair of glasses hung loosely across his face, which he quickly tried to fix. When he finished he looked up at Ash and grinned.

"Don't tell me. You're here to battle the Gym leaders, hmmm? Well you're in the wrong place for that. But anyway, my names Jack, pleased to meet you"

"Err...I'm Ash"

Ash smiled his goofy grin as he accepted Jack's outstretched hand and shuck it in acknowledgment. Then Jack nodded and turned to a large piece of rock that lay across the main table that stood in the centre of the table, covered in notes, books, an Nintendo DS and a pile of fast food box's. Picking it up, he placed a label upon it which claimed that it was a moon rock from the Kanto region before looking back at Ash with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll be done here in a couple of minutes" He said "Once I'm done I'll go and announce a Gym battle and then we'll see what you have. Until then go and wait in the Meditation area down the corridor. Do what you want there, read a book, play a game, groom your Pokémon and we will send someone to show you the way once we have everything set up"

With that said, he gave the strange rock to a Kabotops that had emerged from the shadow before heading out through a door that stood at the back of the room. The Kabotops gave a growl before placing the rock in a container and seeming to fall asleep stood up in the corner. Ash shared a glance with Pikachu before heading out of the room and towards the door that had an Alakazam meditating inside. As they entered it they found a group of people and Pokémon talking or sitting in silence, seeming in deep meditation. An Alakazam breathed heavily and muttered as it sat in its place by the door, seeming to be completely unaware of the rooms other occupants.

There they stayed for what felt like half an hour, waiting and watching the people and Pokémon as they meditated, Ash tried to do it himself but the thought of the battle to come kept him from relaxing, he was ready for a battle and was beginning to get annoyed at being kept waiting.

Then he felt a small hand tap his shoulder and turned to find a Riolu starring at him, its red eyes borrowing into his as it starred. It only looked away when a Mime Jr. gave it a little push and grinned at Ash before beckoning him to follow. Ash looked at Pikachu, who simply shrugged before following the Mime Jr. As he stood up and followed, he nervously noted the fact that the Riolu had stepped behind him, as if to block his escape from something. Then the two small Pokémon lead them out of the room and back towards the main Gym door, Pikachu beginning a heated conversation with the Mime Jr. about who knows what while the Riolu remained silent.

"So…are you one of the Gym Leader's Pokémon then?" Ash asked the small dog like Pokémon. The only reply that he got however was a brief glance and a single nod before the Riolu looked forward again, seeming to keep an eye on Pikachu as it talked with the Mime Jr.

(A/N: he is very protective over JR)

As they entered the main Gym area a crowd gave a cheer and Ash saw that the seats in the viewing platform at the top had now filled up with people who must have heard of the battle from around the building. Looking up he saw Dawn and Brock up in the crowd, waving at him and wishing him good luck.

Then he turned to view the Gym leaders and frowned as he saw Jack stood next to another trainer dressed in black, whom he could only assume was the other Gym leader Mike. The Riolu and Mime Jr. then ran over to join them, the Riolu taking its place standing next to Mike and the Mime Jr. climbing up to sit Jack's shoulder, much the same way as Pikachu was on Ash's.

"Well" Mike called out suddenly, bringing a wave a silence upon the crowd as they waited for the battle to begin "It's been a while since we've had a good battle so I hope that you can take us because we're going to let get things started. If you don't know the rules of our Gym I'm going to quickly go over them. First you have to defeat two of my Pokémon in a double battle, then two of Jack's and then you have to defeat our two partner Pokémon, Dante the Riolu and JR the Mime Jr. If you beat them then you will have the badge"

"We wish you the best of luck" Jack grinned before turning and taking a seat with JR and Dante behind Mike. Crossing his legs and folding his arms, he allowed JR. to climb onto his knees whist Dante sat in the chair next to him.

Back on the platform, Mike grinned and pulled out two Pokéballs "Let's get things started" He grinned before throwing them into the arena. From the beams of bright red came the forms of a large Toxicroak and a Butterfree, each giving out a loud cry as they took up battle positions before Ash. The Butterfree did a brief summersault in the air and made a lap through the air, flying over each of the crowd stands in a elegant dance that sent the gathered people into a frenzy of cheering and clapping.

"Great" Ash muttered as he pulled open the left of his jacket and removed two Pokéballs "The battles not even begun and the crowds completely against me already" He sighed as he exchanged a glance at Pikachu before hurling his Pokéballs into the arena.

The crowd cheered again as they saw the forms of a Staraptor and Infernape break out of their Pokéballs and land against the hard metal ground of the arena. They both let loose their own deafening battle cries as took in the environment and hundreds of cheering people that seemed to swarm around them before registering the two Pokémon that stood before them.

"And Ash has sent out a Staraptor and an Infernape to face against Mike's classic Butterfree and Toxicroak combination" A loud voice suddenly called out over the cheering crowd, slightly distorted by the loud speakers that hung across the corners of the arenas. "This is setting up to be a very interesting battle and that's just the way we like it here in at the Shadow City Pokémon Gym. So let's get this battle underway and according to Gym rules, as the challenger, Ash is permitted to make the first move. What will he do?"

Ash blinked as he looked around as the now suddenly silent crowd. He wasn't really surprised to found out that such a massive Gym had it own battle commentator but it had still managed to make him slightly nervous. None of the other Gyms he had been to had had such a large and open battle arena, most of them had just been a closed room for the gym leader and him to fight with no one except his friends to watch, now however, there were hundreds of people watching him fight. Not that he was complaining or anything...

"All right then" He called out as he swung his hand out and pointed it towards the Gym Pokémon "Staraptor, use Fly against that Toxicroak and Infernape use flamethrower on that Butterfree!" His Pokémon gave cries of acknowledgment as they burst into motion, Staraptor flying high into the air so that its body rubbed gently across the smooth roof and its large talon like feet opening up so that the claws glinted in the light, whilst Infernape begun running on all fours towards the two Gym Pokémon, the flame atop its head burning hot as it geared up for its attack. The two Gym Pokémon didn't even attempt to move as they watched the oncoming attacks.

"Butterfree use stun spore and Poison Jab"

Mike didn't even need to designate a target for his two Pokémon on they split up and attacked individual Pokémon. The air was filled with a powerfully rhythmic beat as the Butterfree flew high into the air and soared towards the Staraptor whilst the Toxicroak let lose a loud cry and ran forward towards Infernape, its left hand beginning to glow a dull purple as every ounce of poison in its body was pumped into the single needle like outgrowth that emitted from its fist.

"Staraptor Dodge! Infernape use your flamethrower now!" Ash yelled out as the two sets of Pokémon drew closer to each other, forgetting about the huge crowd as he emerged himself in the feel of the battle. He only existed in the battle and only thought of the orders for him to give to his Pokémon as they fought. His eyes narrowed as he watched to see how the Butterfree would react to Staraptor suddenly break from its charge or how the Toxicroak would defend itself as Infernape skidded to a halt before it got within and range for its attack and instead turned its flamethrower into a sort of makeshift wall between in and the frog like Pokémon.

He barely registered the crowd as they howled in excitement as the battle begun, their voices all merging into a single loud roar that passed over him as he saw the Toxicroak stopped just beyond the range of the flamethrower and seemed to crouch down on the spot, its leathery mouth curling back into a grin as, with an almighty push, it launched itself high into the air and soared over the wall of flame in a large jump. It seemed to chuckle as it landed behind Infernape and swung it's still glowing fist around before the fire type could react, slamming the poison jab deep into the base of its spine. The monkey like Pokémon screamed out as it's back arched under the force of the poison jab and it stumbled forward, its eyes closing as it fought with the wave of pain that ran through it.

"Now Toxicroak" Mike could be heard shouting from the far end of the arena "Use Faint Attack"

The crowd howled their approval as the Toxicroak seemed to vanish in thin air and appear inches in front of the still bent over Infernape. The fire type barely had time to look up before another glowing fist was smashed into its face in a viscous upper cut and it was sent flying backwards, slamming its back against the hard ground with a heavy thud. The Infernape gave a futile attempt to pull itself back to its feet before its strength gave in and it collapsed to the ground.

The Toxicroak gave a grin of satisfaction as it wrapped its hand around the injured Infernape's ankle and pulled to towards Ash, dumping it next to the platform where he stood and giving a slight gesture for him to retract the Pokémon before turning and making its way back towards Mike.

With the brief battle on the ground over, every eye in the stadium turned upwards towards the roof of the arena where the Butterfree and Staraptor as they flew around in a vicious dogfight that sent them shooting around in irregular patterns, they could be flying in large circles one second and the next zigzagging around each other before shooting towards the ground and flying mere inches from the ground. The only thing that did remain the same as they flew however was the fact that it was Ash's Staraptor that seemed to be dominating the fight and Mike's Butterfree that was on the run, flying in its irregular patterns in an attempt to lose the flying type Pokémon.

"And Ash has Mike's Butterfree on the run with his Staraptor" Called out the commentator, the mere sound of his voice seeming to send the crowd howling in another fit of excitement "This is understandable seeing as Butterfree is a bug type and thus one strong hit from a flying type like Staraptor will knock him out of the fight for good. What does Mike intend to do to counter this?"

Ash was forced to cover his head with his arm as the two Pokémon flew past him, the displaced wind threatening to throw Pikachu and him from their platform. Looking up, he grinned as he saw the Butterfree begin to falter in its flight and loss altitude, slowly falling towards the ground as Staraptor appeared above it, casting the bug type Pokémon's body into its shadow. Ash could see the crowd whisper to each other in confusion as the gym leaders Pokémon seemed to give into fatigue after only a couple of minutes of its dogfight, falling towards the ground with Staraptor following, now mere inches from getting a hit on the bug type...

"Staraptor break off now!" Ash screamed out as, seemingly out of nowhere, Mike's Toxicroak appeared just to the left of where Butterfree was about to fall, its leathery mouth curled back into a grin as it steadied itself.

"Fire" was the only order that came from its trainer as it reared its head backwards and, with a loud yell, vomited out a hail of spikes that seemed to glow with a sickly purple. The crowd howled out again as the Poison Sting struck the Staraptor head on before it could react, the constant hail of poison encrusted spikes embedding themselves into the Pokémon's chest.

Ash cried out as he watched his Pokémon seem to freeze in the air and plummet to the floor, it gave a cry as the Butterfree spun in the air and slammed it with a tackle and slashing it with glowing wings, the variety of Sliver Wind, Tackle and other attacks rendering the Staraptor unconscious as it slammed into the air. The crowd cheered again as the Toxicroak picked it up and placed it down next Ash the same way that he had for his Infernape.

"Well done guys...you rest now" Ash gave a heavy sigh as he pulled out his Pokéball and retracted the Pokémon before looking up to see Mike do the same for his own. He had been defeated so quickly, even when he had had a favourable type match up...

"Why do you look so surprised?" Mike called over as he retracted his own Pokémon "Butterfree and Infernape have been through a lot and gotten more experience than most of their species. But they never lost sight of the feelings of other Pokémon; never let battles get to far out of hand for Pokémon to get badly hurt, that's why they returned your Pokémon to you before things got too far. The same goes for every Pokémon in this Gym, we believe in battling to be a fun event, not so competitive that Pokémon are forced to fight beyond their limit. So long as you agree with these views I'm sure that you will enjoy it here. I look forward to see how you do against Jack"

With that Mike grinned and turned and made his way to where Jack was walking to meet him, exchanging a grin with him as he took Jacks place in the chair that sat behind them. Jack's Mime Jr. waved as it sat on the small table that stood beside him and began to juggle a toy Pokéball, copying Jack's movements as he threw his own two Pokéballs into the arena, releasing two explosions of light that filled the entire arena, much bigger then they had with Mike's Pokémon and the forms of a couple of giant Pokémon appeared. From one a huge orange dragon formed, an explosion of pure fire shooting upwards from its mouth as it roared, grinning at Ash. From the other Pokéball came a huge, rounded bulk, blue arms and legs stomped and clapped as it let out its own roar, the two cannons on its back rolling and clicking into place. The arena seemed to shake as they emitted deafening howls that roared like thunder.

"Blastoise!"

"Charizard!"

"Jack…" Mike suddenly called over "can I have a private conversation with you?"

"Sure mate, what's up?"

The crowd groaned loudly and shouted out in annoyance as Jack turned away from the battle and made his way towards his partner Gym leader. From behind him, the Blastoise gave an irritated growl and stomped its feet a couple of times, its scaly eyes narrowing as it felt a burst of fire breeze against its arm. Turning it gave a low growl and a nod in indication towards the Charizard that it was calm again. The two giant Pokémon starred at each other for another second before turning back to face Ash, who was still starring back at them in confusion at their standoff and worry about how he was going to defeat the large Pokémon.

A/N: These little events between our Pokémon will have a clearer reason as times goes on...

From atop the platform, the tiny Mime JR gave the crowd a brief wave before hoping into the arena and climbing on Charizard's neck as if he was riding it like a horse, laughing as the dragon Pokémon jumped a bit in a playful manner.

"Whilst the Gym leaders have their discussions," The loud voice of the commentator burst out over the speakers "I would suggest that you all amuse yourselves for the time being or Ash, prepare for your battle. As you can see the gym leader Pokémon have already started killing time"

"Picka...?"

Ash scratched his head as he looked down at his partner Pokémon, shrugging in answer to its questioning look. He wasn't exactly sure why the gym leaders had stopped but, judging by the looks on their faces, there was something wrong with them.

The two Gym Leaders were talking silently and flicking through various files on their Pokétechs, exchanging worried glances with one and other and glancing at their watches. They spoke with one and other for a good few minutes before turning towards Ash again and making his way back towards his platform by the arena. An eerie silence fell over the crowd as they watched him, noticing the look of worry that was clearly falling over him.

"I'm afraid that we are going to have to make this a quick battle Ash. There are some...urgent matters that we need to attend to" As he spoke, Jack gave a slight nod towards his Pokémon in the arena giving them some signal before looking back up to Ash as his Mime JR jumped back up onto the platform and sat on the side of the platform.

Silently, Ash sized up at the two giant powerhouses Pokémon that loomed over him. Janise hadn't been kidding when she said that Jack hit hard, how was he going to beat those Pokémon? Judging from the distracted look on Jack's face and the way that he constantly glanced at his watch, whatever had happened was important and if he didn't get to the battle now then the Gym leader would call the battle off all together. Giving a worried glance to Pikachu, he pulled out two Pokéballs and dropped them into the arena, watching Jack's face closely for any change in his expression as his Torterra stomped into the arena, baring the much smaller form of a Buizel standing on its head with its arms crossed.

The crowd cheered as they realised that they were finally going to get the fight that they had been waiting for all of this time and begun clapping and chanting either Ash's or Jack's name depending on who they wanted to win. Ash could just make out the worried expressions on Dawn's face beside the usually blank face of Brock before he heard a massive roar from the other side of the arena in time to see the massive from of Jack's Blastoise step forward as it levelled its large cannons that stuck out from its back and released a powerful jet of water at his Pokémon whilst the Charizard soared into the air with massive beats of its leather wings.

Ash's Pokémon barely had time to react before the Water cannon struck them head on, causing his Torterra to give a grunt of pain as it slammed against its head, forcing it to turn away under the sheer power of the attack and sending Buizel tumbling from its back, the small Pokémon barely having time to spin and redirect itself before landing gracefully on its feet as Torterra made a series of heavy steps forward against the strangely powerful water type attack. Ash's called out orders were completely drowned out by the roar of the water as the Blastoise gave a massive below and seemed to crank up its attack, allowing the water to come out at an impossible powerful rate.

"Torterra!" Ash yelled to be heard over the roar of the water "you have to hit that thing back now! Buizel, try to get around and hit it from behind!"

Ash breathed a heavy sigh of relief as his Pokémon gave cries of acknowledgement and split up, Torterra give another grunt as it begun to take another series of massive step forwards, its neck bent at a cruel angel as it curved against the constant sea of the water that seemed to eternally pour out of the twin-linked water cannons. Buizel waited for a second before breaking out from behind the giant Pokémon's large rear leg and begun running around the outer perimeter of the arena, keeping down on all fours as it tried to avoid being spotted by the Blastoise, giving thanks to the fact that it seemed so preoccupied with its attack on the grass type, seeming completely unaware of the fact that it was not a favourable match up. It gave a snarl as its eyes locked with the unreadable expression that covered Jack's face as he stared at it, turning away from the competition of strength that was the battle between the two other Pokémon and simply watched Buizel run around to flank his own Pokémon. It tried to shrug the uneasy feeling it got from Jack's stare as it drew closure towards the rear of the Blastoise, giving a grunt as it threw itself into the air and made an elegant cartwheel in the air, snarling again as its twin tales begun to glow a bright white as it geared up an Ion tail, its eyes narrowing as it drew closer to strike...

The crowd screamed and cheered as a massive shape fell from the sky and swung above Buizel as he slammed against the Blastoise, its long claws wrapping around the small Pokémon, dragging up its iron tail mere centimetres from the turtles head and pulling it skyward. Ash cried out as he saw his Pokémon being pulled upwards like a caught insect by Jack's Charizard, how had he not seen that coming?

"Charizard!" The massive fire type Pokémon screamed out as it suddenly broke from its flight and plummeted to the ground, falling at impossible speed as it spread it arms out and held the struggling Buizel beneath it, its eyes narrowing as it swung all of its body weight on top of the small water type Pokémon in a single might seismic toss whilst the Blastoise gave another howl and broke from its barrage, charging head long at the Torterra as its cannons released a powerful ice storm...

...................................................................................................................................................

"Picka...Picka pi"

Ash sighed as he reached down and stroked Pikachu across the ear, smiling as the small mouse Pokémon giggled slightly.

The two were once again sat in the 'meditation area' that they had been sat in before the battle, having finally managed to escape the large crowd that had surrounded them after their defeat. Here they were alone save for the Alakazam that still seemed to sleep beside the entrance. It had given a slight chuckle as they had first entered but had for the most part remained completely immobile as it absorbed itself in deep meditation.

They were not sure how long they had sat there before Dawn found them with a cheery grin, her Piplup following beside her with a look of boredom on its face.

"Not you're best hour was it Ash?" she grinned as she offered him her hand and pulled him up to his feet, her hand resting on his shoulder for a bit longer than necessary. "Come on, Brocks managed to find Janise again and I'm rather worried about what he's planning on doing while Croagunk is away training with a Sceptile. So if you're quiet finished sleeping lets go"

Muttering something about not sleeping, Ash stood and followed her back into the main corridor, Pikachu running ahead of him and glancing around the door. As the two trainers came round the corner, they found the two Gym leaders talking to Janise, worry clear on their faces. The Mime Jr. was in its normal place on Jack's shoulder, looking down at the Riolu in worry, mimicking its trainer's expression perfectly. As Ash came up to them, he got a brief nod from Jack but nothing else in acknowledgement.

"What's wrong?" Dawn asked as she joined them.

"Those tremors that have recently started at Mt. Crystal are getting worse by the day" Jack sighed as he looked over at them "The local Pokémon are getting more and more anxious and have even started attacking people in their escape from whatever it is their sensing going on inside the mountain. Today alone a group of Electrike attacked a school outing, putting a couple of kids in hospital. It's growing faster them we ever thought possible"

"People all over the city are beginning to panic" Mike added, the small Riolu next to him once again watching Pikachu silently "In the last two weeks alone we've had over a dozen complaints about wild Pokémon fleeing from the mountain, religious people are declaring that it's the revenge of Arceus on the sinners or that the mythical Shadow Crystal has been awoken after its thousand years of slumber"

"Mike, JR, Dante and I have to head over to Mt. Crystal and find out just what in the world truly is going on down there"

"JR and Dante?"

"Oh yer, we never introduced you to our partner Pokémon did we?" Jack laughed "Well, this is my partner JR, the Mime Jr" as he said this the little Pokémon on his shoulder grinned and waved at them, laughing along with Pikachu.

"And this is my partner Pokémon, Dante the Riolu" Mike grinned. The small dog like Pokémon nodded briefly before, after some 'encouraging' from JR, gave a brief wave.

"Nice to meet you all" Ash grinned as the two Gym leaders said goodbye before turning and heading out of the Gym, calling out for Espeon and Umbrion to guard the Gym in their absence, to which the Pokémon gave a nod and a cry of goodbye as they disappeared.

"Well" Janise sighed as she watched them go "Let's go and get something to eat then. I know a good place just down towards the town square. Come on, I'll buy"

That was all the encouragement Ash needed as he cheered and followed he, forgetting all the worry he had from the battle as he went.


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: One thing before we read this chapter…Since writing this I have finally seen the Pokémon movie with Arceus and thus have been shown a somewhat different image of the Pokémon. So I believe this to be the best time to mention that all the Pokémon that feature in this story are how I imagined them when I first saw them in the games. I am ignoring the anime save for Ash's Pokémon, hence the fact that Darkrai is all evil. I came up with the idea for this story about three days before I even saw 'Rise of Darkrai' and have thus made a point of completely ignoring the boundaries set out by the anime.

For example, since in the game I first saw Arceus as 'the Alpha Pokémon' I came to view him as the god Pokémon and thus, in my Pokémon world, people thing of Arceus as god. They say his name when people in our world may say 'God' and so on.

This is my version of Pokémon and not the anime's so don't be expecting to see the whole "evil Pokémon are just misunderstood and if you help them they turn nice" that you see in that…their evil…as you will now see in this chapter.

Enjoy.

Chapter 4

Endless Stone

"For Arceus' sake can't these damn Pokémon dig any faster?"

"Not if you want them to live long enough to get to the other side they can't"

Travis cursed as he looked up to see the four Rhydon roar as they threw themselves forward again, slamming their massive horns against the rock face in an explosion of debris and dust. They growled and snarled as they punched and tore at the cliff face, using everything they could to pull that extra piece of rock from the natural barrier. They had been at it for almost three days now, working none stop without any form of rest or nourishment and were now giving into their fatigue as they desperately fought to complete their job in order to get the rest that they knew would only come once they were finished with the task.

"Just get them though that wall in the next half hour or none of us can expect to get any happy welcome back at HQ" He growled as he swung his leg around to send a nearby stone flying into the air, grinning slightly as it bounced of one of his henchmen's head and the confused grunt managed to search in every possible direction except his. "I hate to think how the boss is going to react if we don't meet his deadline"

A few of the black dressed grunts around him, cheered as they hurled black painted Pokéballs into the air and released a group of Pokémon around them, calling out orders as they sent the Pokémon to work against the rock cliff. They formed a sort of makeshift chain with each other as the larger Pokémon such as the Golem tore the rocks clear and then handed the rocks down to the weaker Pokémon, such as a couple of Machop and Dugtrio, who then rolled them away and placed them into large piles around the dig sight.

Travis nodded in satisfaction as he turned and took a seat in a large chair that had been placed on the far side of the site, his black gloved hand reaching up and pulling his cap from his head, holding it up to his eyes slightly as he rubbed his thumb over the single blood red 'R' that had been printed on top of its front, rimmed in a thin purple line in order to make it stand out better against the blackness of his uniform.

What was he doing here?

He was a member of the high council of the New Team Rocket Order, of the new alliance that had formed in the past year. He was supposed to be leading the great return of the greatest organization that had ever been formed. But instead he was here, in the cold, digging after some little known legend that he had never heard of, in a region that whose existence he had only discovered mere days ago. He didn't care about it nor did he think it at all special. He could only groan as he felt another cold breeze blow down from the mountains around him as he reached down and pulled out a small leaflet from his jacket pocket as he placed his cap back on his head and opened it up, his purple colored eyes rolling lazily across it as he read the tourism brochure that he had read a thousand times now.

_**Welcome to the Goin Region! **_

_Of all the regions in the known world, Goin is a region like no other. _

_As the region is set in-between the Joto, Sinnoh and Hoenn regions, Goin has been blessed with the presence of nearly all known Pokémon, making it a must for all trainers who which to capture exotic Pokémon without having to cross the known world. There are also several favoured place for Pokémon breeding grounds and territories that have been left completely untouched by the human world, making it a region left for the Pokémon rather than the people and giving many of the small villages and towns in the upper Goin region a peaceful tranquillity that could not been found in many of the other regions._

_Whether you are a trainer, breeder or all around Pokémon lover, The Goin Region has something for you!_

"Something for you huh?" Travis snorted as he roughly stuffed the brochure back into his pocket and turned to watch one of his men curse as he struggled to fix a large machine that he had stood up atop a large tripod. "You having some trouble there 'Dim'?"

"Don't call me that" The man snapped as he yanked another wire from the machine and screwed a different one into its place. "You know my name and rank and therefore know that I am your equal. Commander Barling, third in command of what remains of Team Dim Sun. But you can call me Brendon"

Travis could only laugh as he stood and made his way over to where the man was stood, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of the purple shell shape that had been emblazoned on his chest where any self respecting criminal would have bore the Team Rocket logo. But this man was not a normal criminal, he was no member of Rocket, he was a member of Team Dim Sun, and Travis hated him for that alone.

"How long until you get this thing working Dim?" He grunted as he flicked the tip of the machine with his middle finger in a bored manner. It's not that he was interested in it or anything, he just wanted to find an excuses to laugh at the other team member some more. "I thought you were supposed to be the big techno group. So how come you can't get a machine working that your team made?"

"If you had made attention to the briefing" Brendon snarled as he jerked his hand backwards when an explosion of sparks shot out from the wire he was holding, burning the tips of his fingers as a sudden burst of electricity abruptly blasted across the machines circuits. "You would have know that we lost the crystal shards that make our 'Gigremos' work when the Shadow Crustal back in the Almia region was lost to those damned rangers. What few we have left tend not to have a very powerful life span"

"So what's the point in you even being here?"

"The hell if I know!" Brendon suddenly snapped, spinning around to star directly at Travis, the sudden act of motion from him sending another explosion of sparks from his Gigremos, causing him sigh as his hand was again caught by a couple of the sparks. "I came to this dig site because I was ordered to do so by my superiors, same as you. I'm not here through choice and I would really appreciate if you could just shut the hell up and leave me to work. Don't you have some poor Pokémon or people to work to their deaths?"

"Maybe I do"

"Then why don't you just...GAH!"

Brendon's eyes widened in surprise as a thin projectile flew though the air and imbedded in the screen of the Gigremos. Exchanging a glance with Travis, he could only frown as he saw it to be a thin black Orchid, the green tip glinting in the light as if it was formed from a slight mixture of organic tissue and steel. There was a brief pause before an explosion of electricity tore through the flowers steam and flooded into the machine, causing its circuits to scream in protest as they overloaded and shattered, causing the entire front shell to be blown apart by an explosion of fire and electricity that caused the terrified Dim Sun to stumble and fall onto his back as he tried to escape the fire.

"Tut tut. You boys should know that if you fight over your toys then you get it taken away from you" A soft voice giggled from behind them, causing both of the criminals to shiver as they turned to see the slender figure of a woman leap out from the top of a nearby tree seeming to appear out of now where as it landed gracefully before them, a sudden burst of wind lifting up the nearby fallen leaves, causing her to seem to be wrapped by a cloak of dark, blood red which contrasted sharply with her black uniform and her blonde hair which she had curled up around her face in an almost innocent frame which was again in contrast with the sheer malice that glowed from within her blue eyes as they reflected the glow of the tiny fire that burned through the newly formed hole in the Gigremos.

"Co...Commander 009" Travis gasped as he desperately pulled himself back to his feet and tried to straighten his uniform and salute her in unison, succeeding in only making herself look even more like an idiot. He had to close his eyes as he straightened his hat in an attempt to avoid the strange look of mixed amusement and announce that he caught from his commanding officer "It's a pleasure to meet you. How...how can we be of service to you?"

"Oh just keep doing what you're doing" She smiled as she walked up towards the burning Gigremos and kicked a pile of dirt into the burning hole in the front with a brief flick of her thigh high white boots. She grinned in satisfaction as the small fire flicked and died beneath the soil before groaning as she noticed the dirt mark that had appeared on the tip of her boot as she turned around and starred at the scared form of Brendon, raising her eyebrow as he simply starred at her in shock. "Take a picture it will last longer" She smiled cutely before swinging her foot around again and driving it into the side of the man's head causing him to scream in pain as he rolled on to his side, cradling his head against his body.

"Hmmm, that's a shame" 009 grinned as she turned back to Travis and scrolled her eyes around across where the Rhydon were continuing their relentless onslaught against the cliff face "It seems that the representative from Team Dim Sun isn't feeling well enough to join us in our investigation of the area. And with no members of Galactic around I suppose the burden must fall upon the members of Team Rocket to complete this great discovery and place our mark on history" As if emphasise her point, she swung her leg around again and drove it into Brendon's side causing him to cry out again and prompting another smile to cross her lips. "Commander Travis, I'm sure you're up to this task"

"Errrr...yes commander 009" Travis shouted as he snapped to attention, keeping one eye on the now shivering form of Brendon as he tried to lift himself back onto his feet before having another kick delivered into his side.

"Oh, were both commanders aren't we? So you can call me Domino" She smiled, giggling slightly in such a way that made Travis seriously question whether that was really her name. "But don't worry, I've only been sent her to make sure that the operation goes on without any problems, it's still all your show so just act like I'm not here k?"

"Hey, I can see something!"

Travis whispered his thanks to Arceus for allow their awkward conversation to be interrupted as he looked up to see one of his men calling over as the Rhydon tore another chunk of dirt from the wall and smiled in relief as he saw a hole appear where there had previously been dirt, signalling that they had finally found the mouth of the cave. The Pokémon howled and cheered as they doubled their efforts, spurred on by the end to their work that was now suddenly so close to them.

Travis sighed as he gestured for his men to move and assist the Pokémon now that it would be of any help to them and begun moving to pick up the kit bag that he had left next to his chair, stalling temporally as he noticed Domino leaning back in it with her legs crossed, despite having made no sound at her movement. She smiled cutely at him before another Black flower seemed to appear in her hand and she threw it forward like a dart at a dart board, never taking her eyes of him as it flew through the air and stuck against the now slowly crumbling cliff face, causing a Machoke to swing itself to the side as it pierced the air a hair-width away from its face. There was another pause before the tip of the flower seemed to glow yellow and the entire cliff face vanished in a wall of fire that tore through the remaining rock sending a few of the smaller Pokémon flying though the air and causing the larger ones to yell out in pain the swung away from the fire or were crushed by the wave of rocks that fell downward on them when the supporting wall suddenly vanished.

"There, that's my contribution to the operation" She sighed before pulling her cap over her eyes and seeming to fall asleep as she folded her arms behind her head and lead back into the chair, only looking up to fix Brendon with another glare as he tried to climb back to his feet, daring him to try and move. 

Travis blinked in confusion as she seemed to emit a slight snore from beneath her cap, one of her trademark black orchids clutched between the fingers of her right hand. She definitely was not what she had expected one of the highest ranking members of Team Rocket to be, back in the glory days of Team Rocket she had been answerable to no one save for Giovanni himself. Now in the new arrangement that they had established with the other teams, she played the role of head field agent for Team Rocket in the major operation but, as she had previously shown by her reaction to Brendon, she hated everything about the prospect of working with the other alongside the other teams. She had fought it from the very beginning and had claimed that Giovanni had always desired to keep Team Rocket pure and that it must remain that way for the day that he would eventually return to lead them into glory after his isolation from them eight years ago. But the amount of people that still believed in the return of Giovanni was dropping more and more by the day and she had been forced to agree with alliance, though any other team members that tried to talk intermit to her were soon found dead with a small hole in their neck that look about the size of a orchid stalk, not that anyone dared to question her about it.

"There a problem?"

"Errrr…no" Travis started as her voice broke though his train of thought, the slightly irritated tone causing him to break into a run as he grabbed his bag and headed down to the now clear mouth of the cave that they had found, gesturing for is men to take up their positions around it as they retracted their Pokémon into their Pokéballs and moved to meet him, the three Rhydon crashing to the ground as they finally gave into their fatigue and crumbled, smashing against the ground with terrible force a couple of seconds before they were engulfed by red light and they vanished into the Pokéballs that a couple of almost proud looking grunts held out, each exchanging glances at one another before pocketing the balls and moving to join with the rest of them.

Travis nodded in satisfaction as he watched the last of them move into position, a dozen of his best grunts, forming two six men lines outside the mouth of the cave and pulling out touches and other equipment from their bags and placing hard helmets over their blacks caps, some releasing a couple of electric or normal type Pokémon and even a couple of fire types that they could use to create any source of light once they got into the darkness that they could already see emitting from the cave. They had no idea how deep the cave was, nor of any possible dangers such as pits or rocks that had become unstable by their unusual method of breaching the cave wall.

A brief hand gesture from Travis and they were all moving into the cave, several of them shivering slightly as they were struck by the unusual wave of cold that emitted from within, not exactly a draft but seeming to strike against them as if the cave itself was breathing upon them in excitement at their entry, waiting to close its mouth and devourer them whole. But with Domino fixing them with an icy glare from behind, Travis had to seriously consider whether that would be such a bad thing or not.

….

"Hey Dex, come here will ya"

"What is it sir?"

Travis scratched his nose slightly as he gestured towards the wall, directing the expeditions 'know it all', as he liked to call them, towards the series of strange carvings that covered every inch of the inner wall. He had no idea how long the team had been walking in the cave when they had come across the large hall that they had come into, a massive cavern that seemed to have been cut into the depths of the cave, held aloft by massive stone pillars that reached up to a roof hundreds of feet above them. No one had entered it in hundreds of years, the massive rock cliff that they had spent days trying to climb through was testament to that, and yet it was still in perfect condition, the pillars completely untouched by time as they seemed to have shrugged of any chips in their perfectly smooth surface. All except for a single wall that ran across the rear of the hall, which had been carved with a huge amount of carvings that ran across the bottom, each symbol seeming to have been carved in with great difficulty before being sealed in by a beam of extreme heat, probably from some fire type Pokémon.

"Wow" Dex chuckled as he ran his hand over the carvings, smiling like a child on his birthday as he looked back at Travis before pulling out a book and scribbling down in it as he tried to translate it "This sir, is the text of the unknown. It's not been used by any known civilization for hundreds of years, seeming to have vanished along with the Pokémon that it was based on themselves but it has recently become more and more evident with the discover of several new ruins form the past such as the ruins of Alph in the Kanto region. There they found…"

"I'm sorry if you misunderstood me Dex" Travis snapped, cutting him of in mid-sentence "But I didn't want a history lesson in something that I don't really care about. All I want to know is can you translate it?"

"All ready done" Dex grinned as he regained his composure and turned around the book that he had been writing in, grinning in triumph as he saw the expression of surprise that flashed across Travis' face. "It said, 'Beware all those who enter this unholy place. For the Tomb of Spirits stands on eternal guard over that which has been banished within'. Ha, sounds like something out of a crap ghost story that you would tell around a camp fire right?"

"Hmmm. I thought there might have been something of use, like a map or something" Travis sighed as he stood up and scrolled his eyes over the wall again before turning back to the men that he had gathered around him. "All right men, I want you to split up into two groups and move to spread the most possible ground. You will maintain constant radio contact with each other and you will report everything you find to be before anything else. Any questions?" He paused for a brief second but didn't really leave anytime for them to answer before clapping his hands and ordering them to move out, placing Dex in command of the second group. Then, the two groups moved away from each other and vanished into the darkness that still surrounded them.

…

"Come on Dex, we've been walking for hours. And were going round in circles, I'm sure we've seen those carvings before."

"Just keep walking and quit whining. We can't go back to the surface until we have found what were looking for, or do you want to explain to agent 009 why we have failed?"

That did the trick, Dex reflected to himself as he ran his finger down the page in his notebook, writing down every set of ancient text that he found and translating it on the move, slowly forming a picture of the layout of the catacombs they had found themselves in and trying to work out where they were supposed to be heading. Though he was doing everything in his power to prevent himself from thinking about it, he was hopelessly lost down in this Arceus forsaken tomb and something was preventing him from contacting Travis' team, every time he tied to contact them, all he got was static and a strange chill that seemed to run down his spin every time he considered his options.

Sighing, he turned to look at the nearest wall, running he hand across the Unknown symbols that stretched across it as he mouthed them again and again, trying to translate them as best he could, running them through his mind again and again as he struggled to decipher the message that they spoke, trying to understand what they were warning him about and trying to fight the incredible feeling of unease that gripped him every time he ran over the warning of him having to pass through the 'Tomb of Spirits' in order to reach what it was that he was seeking. Whatever this tomb was…

"Hey I've got movement!"

Dex cursed as he spun round and shoved his way to the rear of the team, following where the grunt who had spoken was pointing and frowning as he found only darkness. He stared for a second before turning to look at who had spoken, raising an eyebrow slightly as he found a handgun hovering beside his face, pointing just passed he ear to where he had designated as the location of whatever he has seen move. How had he managed to slip that past Travis?

"We moving on" Dex spoke, keeping his voice just loud enough for the group to hear him but low enough to prevent it echoing down the stone hallway. "Keep your eyes open and report anything to me"

"Shouldn't we try to contact the other team sir?"

"I'm sure Travis wants something more concrete for us to worry him with then one of us simply jumping at ghosts don't you?" Travis lied as he began walking away from them, hoping they wouldn't question him anymore on why he wasn't contacting the other group and praying against hope that they would simply stumble upon the other team around the next corner or the one after that, or the one after that…

"Dex….wh….your….ion?" Dex jumped harshly as he heard his radio suddenly burst into a hail of static, tearing through the silence with such abruptness that even the darkness around them seem to leap back as the touches on the six grunts' helmets shot in every possible direction as they searched for the source of the sudden disturbance before realizing it was the radio. The voice of Travis was barely audible through the roar of the signal and seemed to fade in and out with every syllable, making it almost impossible to understand what was being said.

"Travis is that you sir?" Dex cried out as he pulled out his radio and held it against up to his mouth, not even trying to hide his relief at contact with his commander. "Thank Arceus…where they hell are you?"

"Don….know….cant….nd…way…ou…Somethin…watchi… us"

"Repeat sir, I can't make out anything your saying" Dex cried out, his voice slipping further and further into desperation as he realized that something was very wrong.

"Get out!"

That last bit had been clear enough as suddenly the static exploded into an ear shattering rate before dying completely, plunging the small group into silence again as they exchanged glances with one another, clutching their hands around whatever weapons they had been able to bring with them into the operation, be in a gun or simply a rather big pick axe, each taking some comfort from the fact that they had something with which to defend themselves.

Dex signaled for them to take up defensive positions as he tried to think of a plan, very much aware of the looks of incredible distrust and fear that had suddenly appeared across his men's faces. Suddenly the dark around him seemed to have become threatening, seeming to seep in towards him as he glanced around at the carvings again, the threat seeming to scream out at him as he back away.

Was this the judgment of the Tomb of Spirits?

"Crap, sir I've got movement again!"

Dex cursed as he spun around and saw the flicker of purple that seemed to glow in the corner of his eye before it vanished again. Every atom in his body was telling him that he was in way over his head and that he had to get the hell out of whatever icy grip the tomb seemed to be contracting around him, fingers of cold air tightening around his leg…

The silence was suddenly shattered by the an almost unearthly scream as one of the men at the rear of the group (John, a former member of the Team Rocket division in the Joto Region if Dex remembered correctly) suddenly vanished, his weapon clattering to the ground as he was pulled back by some impossibly strong, invisible force, vanishing into the dark with a agonized scream before there was a flash of purple light and silence once again fell upon them.

"The hell was that?"

Dex could only stare in horror as the dark around them seemed to heave and convulse towards them, thick tendrils reaching out and seeping like snakes over the weapon that John had just dropped as they creped forward. The grunts cursed as some begun to fire their weapons, the flashes of light that erupted from their guns causing the dark to retreat slightly as if it was scared of it, the tendrils withering slightly whenever they were struck by the flash despite the fact that the bullets themselves simply vanished into the dark as if they were shooting water. A couple of them broke and ran, their urge of self preservation overriding common sense as they ran into the darkness on the opposite side from where John had just vanished, their terrified whimpers being drowned out and then silenced abruptly by another flash of purple light on their side, accompanied by the soft sound of thick liquid dripping onto the stone floor.

"We're surrounded" the terrified men cried out as they desperately searched the dark around them as they grouped together, taking whatever comfort they could from the presence of the other grunts, reminding themselves they were not alone in the now suddenly hostile underground labyrinth. They looked to Dex for orders but received only a stare of shock and horror from their commander as he stared out into the dark, it was as if his mind had suddenly snapped and, his hope had vanished just as quickly as the dark had begun to creep towards them again.

Then, slowly at first but growing in speed, the dark seemed to rise like a tidal wave and the terrified men barely caught sight of a pulsating face of purple light with features of a sickly green before it crashed down upon them and their world was consumed by the black…

….

"Move, Move!"

Travis cursed as another of his men was pulled away from the group, torn from his feet by a dull purple tendril before he was consumed by the growing darkness, his agonized scream being abruptly cut short a second later.

He only had three of his men with him now, the others being dragged away by what every it was that was attacking them as they reached for the Pokéballs that hung from their belts. None of the survivors dared to slow down to try and send out their Pokémon as they ran, something telling them that whatever it was they were against was far too powerful for any of their Pokémon. So they could only keep running, heading as deeper and deeper into the catacombs on the odd chance that they would be able to somehow find a way out of them, dogged the entire way by what they could only assume to be the 'Tomb of Spirits' as it picked them off one by one, the stone walls seeming to echo with hollow laughter. The further they ran, the more their unnatural attacker seemed to close in, almost as if it was trying to herd them somewhere…

"Hey look!"

Travis grunted in acknowledgment as he saw the massive door that loomed over them at the end of the corridor, the large oak word leaning to the side just enough to allow a small stream of light to glow from the room beyond. He tried to ignore the way that the light flickered and shifted as he drew nearer, telling himself that it was somehow night outside and that the moving lights were the torches of the men he had left behind looking for them. He had no idea where Dex's group had gone nor did he care at the moment, he didn't even know where half of his own squad was or where he was for that matter.

They had expected only a small cavern to be beyond the cave but the mass of stone corridors and fire that they had found had proven to be worse than any forest or cave. There was a never-ending series of turns after series of turns as they had found themselves under attack from some unseen foe, a tendril of purple suddenly appearing from the blackness and dragging on of his most trusted men away, the flickering torch light catching the screaming man at just the right time to see some invisible blade plunge through his chest in an explosion of blood.

After that, they simply ran…

"Sir, get in"

Travis grunted as he threw the weight of his body forward in an attempt to make himself move faster, desperately trying to ignore the sound of yet another of his men get pulled away screaming before being silence abruptly. He slammed into the door and cursed as he stumbled and fell to the floor on the other side, blinking as his eyes were caught off guard by the extreme light that seemed to blast out from the series of flame torches that hung from every inch of the stone walls which stretched out before them.

"Shut the damn door" He heard himself scream out as a couple of grunts began shoving the stone doors closed behind them, watching in horror as a sea of purple smoke began to rise across the ground and seep towards them. They grunted and cursed as they placed all of their body strength behind the ancient stone as they fought against the centuries of dust and rust that had caked the door's hinges.

Only a bit more left, Travis thought as he saw the door creak shut at an agonizingly slow speed. He could feel a cold chill coming from behind him and grinned as he sensed freedom from the caves in the open behind…it had to be the way he had come in.

"Stop! Hold that door!"

Travis's shot back into the dark corridor as he heard a familiar voice scream out, the few surviving grunts around him muttering and suddenly attempting to push the door back open as they saw a group of figures burst from the unnatural dark and run though the purple smoke. They yelled and waved for the door to be kept open for them, running headlong in their desperation. None of the group of four seemed to notice when one of their number suddenly tripped and fell, screaming out in pain as the smoke curled over his body and consumed him.

"Sir, its Dex's squad"

Travis nodded slightly as he watched Dex run forward; the grunts around him caught in a desperate race for survive.

Maybe he could keep the door open for a second longer...

Suddenly the walls heaved as an unnatural screech broke through the darkness. Every crack in the stone walls of the corridor beyond began to vomit out a never ending sea of purple smoke that gathered and formed together between the two groups, rising upwards into a spinning plate like form which was facing towards Dex.

"Shut the door now!" Travis screamed as he ran forward and pressed his entire bodyweight against the wall, a look from his face telling his own men not to question as they joined him in heaving the door closed. They could hear Dex scream out in terror as he saw them continue closing the door, his voice slowly getting drowned out by a hollow laughter which seemed to emit from the cloud now suddenly sold purple.

Travis cast a final, somewhat apologetic look towards Dex's distraught face before the cloud turned towards him. Large eyes of pulsating green narrowed as they focused on him, one a large spiral which spun around in a fit of insanity as a long, jack-o-lantern like mouth curled open in a hideous grin which twisted and morphed as the hollow, disembodied voice howled with laughter from every inch of the walls. Travis stared in horror as the wall of smoke seemed to grow and large tenders reached out to the screaming Dex, the pulsating eyes of green focusing sourly upon Travis before the eon old stone door slammed shut…

The group of three survivors fell silent as they heard the laughter fade away beyond the door, Dex's screaming ceasing abruptly with the sickening snap of bone snapping and thick liquid falling upon stone before the tomb once again fell silent.

Travis had no idea how long he stood there, the sound of the two grunts beside him and his own heavy breathing consuming every one of his senses as he tried to forum some understanding of what had just happened. All he could work out was that he had been sent here to find out something about a stupid legend and now he had seen men he had served alongside with for years butchered by something right in front of his eyes. Had that cloud of purple been some sort of Pokémon?

"Arceus no…"

Travis sighed as he heard one of the men beside him whisper out, turning very slowly as he realized that the cold chill couldn't be the exit, the air was stale and harsh.

Instead of the exit, he came face to face with a massive crystal which hovered over him. Its surface was of the purest black as it hovered a couple of feet above the ground, held aloft by some invisible power. No matter how much light was cast upon it by the torches around it, nothing reflected or shone on the black surface, the deep black seeming to absorb every trace of light which struck the crystal as if it wasn't there, more like a void of space rather than a physical crystal.

There was no doubt that this was the shadow crystal that they had been sent to find.

"So, it seems that the legends were true…" Travis muttered as he took a step forward, trying to act as though he was still sure of his mission in order to ensure his leadership over the terrified grunts behind him. Now that he was concentrating upon the crystal, he could feel the faint trace of static electricity which buzzed through the air around it as he approached, sending the hairs along the back of his neck and arms upright. He could hear faint voices in the air, softer than any whisper and almost inaudible no matter how hard he listened. Slowly he stepped up to the crystal, his eyes scanning every inch of it as he paused beside it and, timidly, reached out and placed his hand upon the ice cold surface.

The second his flesh touched the ice like cold, the whispers screeched out around him with terrible force. He screamed and backed away from the crystal as his hands shot up and desperately tried to cover his ears in a futile attempt to block out the screaming and screeching which surrounded him. He opened his eyes just enough to see his remaining men scream before collapsing to the ground, blood pouring freely from their shattered ears before he felt something shift behind him.

With all of his strength, he turned towards the crystal once more, falling heavily to his knees as the agonized screaming seemed to close in upon him, yelling in rage and pleading for mercy all in one as he looked up towards the crystal through tear soaked eyes.

The last thing that Travis, high-official of Team Rocket saw, was a single pale blue eyes staring down upon from beneath the surface of the crystal, shimmering within the sea of darkness that formed the rest of the surface. It narrowed upon him, a blast of white flame flickering above in and where the second eyes should be before the screaming reached out once more, stronger than ever and Travis' vision went black.

The Tomb was deathly silent as his body fell to the stone ground with a soft thud.

…

"And that's the last one gone"

Domino let out a sigh as she ran her eyes across the gaping mouth of the cave one last time before shrugging and turning around. She ran one of her orchids across her lips as she seemed to fall in deep thought before looking up towards where Brendon was typing into his laptop, monitoring the last life sign vanish from the dozen men she had sent into gave to retrieve the crystal.

"It seems that this isn't going to simply be a matter of walking into that cave and bringing out that crystal" she sighed as she twirled the orchid around her fingers absentmindedly "I guess it your lucky day for this because I'm placing you in charge of this operation until I return. I don't want anyone else walking in or out of that cave until then and if they do…well you will be the one to volunteer for another party…alone. I'm going back to HQ to give my report"

"Errr…yes sir" was all the Dim-Sun representative could manage to say as he watched her walk away her orchid spinning round and round as she twirled her fingers.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: the awakening had begun! With the tomb of the shadow crystal finally breached things have been set in motion which will change the very face of the Pokémon world. Now I have passed the time of innocence for my story and have come to the time of darkness. This is where I begin the path to destruction and death.

So in other words, if you don't like dark stories with death in them, turn away now. This is your last warning.

Still here? Excellent, I hope that you enjoy. I'm afraid that there is mostly dialogue in this chapter but this is the last 'scene setting' chapter and from here on in we have fun.

Chapter 5

Unsettled Wildlife

"Duskull" the Pokémon hissed; its voice hollow and unnerving as its single red eye rolled from empty skull socket to empty skull socket. It bobbed up and down as it caught a blast of wind and began to circle its master as he looked down at the large crowd of people below them. Again it hissed as it seemed to prod the small, blood red R that had been printed on his jacket and its eye tumbled to the other side of its skull as it looked at the large G that had been printed on the jacket of its master's companion. Its eye rolled from side to side as he glanced from logo to logo, taking in every difference that existed on the two uniforms before giving a loud hiss and floating forward to again look at the people below them as they began to shout and curse at one another.

Its mater and his companion were both stood atop the roof of one of the many buildings that surround a large structure that had been labeled as a 'Hospital'…not that that word meant anything to the Pokémon as its eyes again rolled to its other socket in a lazy flick of its body. It could hear the people cry out and shout for answers to their panic as they leant over a small line of yellow 'DO NOT CROSS' ropes, it could feel every emotion of pain, anger, fear and it could sense the excitement that poured like a sea from its master and his companion.

The Pokémon had never bothered to learn their names as it heard them whisper to one another, only that the different uniforms that the two wore caused a sort of tension between them and that tension made their emotions as varied as the emotions of the crowd below. They whispered to each other as they watched and the Pokémon floated forward so that it could get a better view as one of the humans stepped ahead of the shouting crowd and began to address them…

…..

"All right that's enough! Can everyone please calm down and form a line in a dice order please. I can't see all of you at once. I know that you want answers but there is no way that I can give you them if you all stand and scream at me"

Ash sighed as he watched the crowd shout and scream for answers outside the Shadow City Hospital, screaming for an explanation for yet another Pokémon attack which had shocked to city that very morning. Shadow City's Officer Jenney looked visibly exhausted as she fought to establish even a trace of calm over the dozens men and woman who had swarmed around the entrance to the hospital, desperate to see if the reports about the attack were true. Officer Jenney's calls out for calm fell upon deaf ears as the gathered people saw an ambulance pull up and a large group of Chansey run out to meet a dozen stretchers as they were pulled quickly into the hospital.

Each stretcher bore a young child…

Ash felt his breath catch slightly as he saw another pair of children get pulled out, one baring a long cut along his cheek and the other, with a stunned silence from the gathered people, was seen to have had that stretcher's cover pulled over her face.

From what he had been able to gather, a group of young children had been playing out in the forest outside the boundary of the city. They had formed a small playhouse of sorts beneath a large outgrowth of bushes that had formed walls around the decade old oaks of the trees, hanging swinging tires and makeshift slides from the various branches in order to effectively form a child's dream playground. It was a place that they could be away from their parents and be one if nature so to speak, a place where they could play with the Pokémon that were drawn to them in a time of innocence. But suddenly and terribly, a pack of Ursaring had come smashing from the undergrowth and attacked the playground in a bloodthirsty rage.

No one was sure what had happened after that…apparently a group of wild Pokémon had attempted to defend the fleeing children, the children could be heard screaming about a group of Roselia, Plusle, Minun and other breeds of kind Pokémon that had been drawn by the promise of play. They had fought with courage of sorts that only came from the urge to defend ones that are loved but got nothing more than howling rage and slashing claws and teeth from the enraged bear like Pokémon.

The innocent world of human and Pokémon fun was now said to be bathed in the blood of those who had played there in their ignorance of the growing harshness of the world around them.

Sighing, Ash turned around and walked towards where Dawn stood beside a large statue of the fabled Shadow Crystal, her hair fallen solemnly across her face as she stood in silence. She, like Ash himself, had always been the sort to believe that all Pokémon were naturally kind and that it took something truly terrible to drive any Pokémon into acts of such rage and cruelty. Now, to have heard that a group of Pokémon had gone so far as to slaughter the innocence, had struck them hard. Especially since they had only found out about it through overhearing to people as they ran by whilst they had been joking and laughing outside a café with Janise.

They had all felt somehow responsible to find they had been joking and relaxing whilst defenseless children were…

"Charizard!"

Ash looked up as a massive shape flew overhead, flying around in a circle above the crowd to make them disperse before slamming to the ground with a thud. For a second the young trainer felt a twinge of sudden excitement before he saw the silhouetted forms of the cities Gym leaders jump down from the massive dragon like Pokémon, for a second he had thought that it had been his own Pokémon returning in the dark times…

"Will everyone please calm down!" the leaders roared out into the crowd, the one wearing the long lab coat, Jack, running up towards were Officer Jenney and Nurse Joy had gathered outside the hospital. The other leader, Mike, began screaming out for calm from the crowd as he stepped towards them. Though the amount of respect the city had for the two leaders may have been enough to keep the crowd calm long enough to listen to them, it did no harm for Mike's authority to have the massive dragon like form of Jack's Charizard leaning over his shoulder, growling at anyone who looked ready to oppose or retort back at him.

"Look" Mike shouted out into the crowd "I understand that you're all worried but we don't know anymore about what is going on out there then you do. All we know is that this is the fifth Pokémon attack this week and by far the most serious. Jack and I have personally been to this 'play area' and have found no trace of the Pokémon responsible or of anything that may have caused them to act in the way that they are"

"We have set up a help line that you can call should you have any questions or ideas at what is happening out there" Officer Jenney said calmly as she walked up to join him, leaving Jack and Nurse Joy still talking behind her as another ambulance drove away. "The parents of the children involved will be notified as soon as possible and we will inform you all once we have any more tangible evidence than the mere speculation and guess work that we have at the moment"

The crowd seemed about ready to retort and a couple of shouts about them withholding information were shouted out but the Charizard simply gave another bellow with much more affect than any call for calm. This went on for what felt like an age as Officer Jenney attempted to give out contact information and pleas for information as Mike slipped away to rejoin Jack and Nurse Joy.

"Come on" Ash suddenly whispered as he nudged Dawn towards the side of the crowd, gesturing towards a small alley that seemed to lead around the side of the main crowd. "I want to hear what those three are talking about at the back"

Dawn merely grunted as she allowed herself to be lead into the alley and seemed distracted and distant as she followed her friend. She didn't complain about it being bad when Ash started climbing over the fences of the houses back gardens and slipped down the side of one to come out on the far side of the line that Officer Jenny had drawn around the hospital. She didn't seem to care when people glanced at the two trainers through house windows as they moved through their gardens.

She only really seemed to break out of her trance when Ash abruptly grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to the side with a fierce tug, pulling her behind the corner of the hospital wall once they drew near to the two Gym leaders who still stood talking to Nurse Joy. She blinked in confusion before nodding as he lifted a finger to his mouth and leant his head to the as far to the side as he dared, keeping his ear pointed towards the talking people in the hopes of being able to catch bits of their conversation, despite the fact that they were so close that even Dawn could hear every word that they were saying.

"Five attacks in a week is just too much" They could hear Nurse Joy sigh as she flicked through a set of papers on a clipboard, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion "We don't have the supplies or manpower to look after the sheer need of some of the injuries that are coming in. My presence here is testament to that. I can't keep control of both the hospital and the PokéCentre, usually I only have to worry about the PokéCentre and leave the human hospitals in the management of the doctors…but now…we just can't cope"

"I know Joy. If we don't find out what the hell is going on out there these attacks are just going to keep getting worse and worse" That voice had to belong to Jack, the Gym leader with the lab coat "we need at least some results or people are going to start to really panic"

"I know that Jack, but some of these injuries are simply beyond my abilities with the resources that I have"

"Is there anything we can do to help?" That was the other Gym leader, Mike.

"Yes, find out what's going on in those mountains that could be driving peaceful to acts of absolute violence!"

"Easier said than…excuse me…"

Ash blinked in confusion as he heard Jack suddenly bow out of the conversation, looking down towards Dawn as if he expected her to somehow know where he had gone before a thin, clawed hand reached out and wrapped around his shoulder and pulled him backwards. He yelled in shock as he looked up into the narrowed, deep yellow eyes of a Sceptile growling down at him in annoyance. Dawn cried out as she took a step forward as if to protect him before the massive forum of Jack's Charizard appeared behind it and, curving its long orange neck over the grass-type's head so that it was leaning inches away from her face, breathing out with a blast of hot breath so that she was forced to back away. The fire-type was still for a moment before its head tilted slightly as it cast a gaze down upon Ash, inclining in a brief nod of recognition of the scared trainer before lifting its head back away and taking a step back. It gave a brief growl and the Sceptile gave a click of its tongue and took its own step backwards, flicking its arms up slightly so that the ridged leaves that ran along them fell loose as it relaxed.

"Who do we have guys? Is it…oh, it's you"

Ash merely grunted as he lifted himself back to his feet and turned to see Jack step between him and the two Pokémon, the Sceptile and Charizard following his movement's inch for inch as he did so. The gym leader paused for a second as he stared at Dawn, before nodding as he remembered meeting her in the entrance to the gym and reaching down to pick up Ash's hat from where it had fallen off and handing it back to him.

"Sorry about that" he said, his face softening into an apologetic expression as he gestured for the two Pokémon to stand down "Your lucky Charizard recognized you from our battle before, or Sceptile may have been pretty nasty when you tried to fight back"

"Is this how you're Pokémon always reacting with strangers?" Dawn asked, her eyes glancing from Pokémon to Pokémon as if she was expecting them to attack at any moment.

"Oh Arceus no" Jack laughed as he turned and began to walk back towards were Mike and Nurse Joy were watching from the entrance to the hospital. "Normally they are very excepting of them. It's just that…you know, with the troubled times that this city is going through it pays to be prepared for anything"

"But I thought that the affected Pokémon were all staying outside of the city"

"Psycho Pokémon are only one of our problems at the moment" Jack laughed grimly as he looked back towards the crowd that was still stood watching from the end of the street. Nurse Joy had made the most of the calm that the Gym leader's arrival had brought and was now managing to get several of them to disperse and head home, now flanked again by Charizard and joined by the Sceptile seeing as how it was now out of its Pokéball. "I don't know if you've heard but we've been getting more and more reports of known criminals and underworld lords being seen around the city and neighboring towns. I'm talking members of every major criminal Team in existence, all converging on this one city…its absolutely ridiculous. That's why my Pokémon were so aggressive towards you, two people hiding in the dark, eavesdropping, I can't afford to take any chances"

Dawn exchanged a glance with Ash as they finally reached Mike and Nurse Joy again, looking around them in worry as if they expected to see said team members to suddenly appear before them. Ash paused to crane his neck upwards as he tried to see over the crowd, breathing out a sigh of relief as he saw Brock stood outside a Pokémon Supply shop with Pikachu, promising to not let his partner Pokémon out of his sight from now on as he fell into certainty that a certain trio will already be stalking them.

"What's he doing here?"

Ash smiled apologetically as they drew level with Mike and Nurse Joy, scratching the back of his head as he often did whenever he was nervous. He looked up to see the slightly irritated expression on Mike's face as Jack begun talking to him and the equally irritated expression on Nurse Joy as she accepted a piece of paper from a Chansey.

"Whatever" Mike shrugged as he seemed to accept whatever Jack has said before pulling out a Pokétech and pressing a series of buttons, turning his back to them as he looked up towards the large array of mountains that loomed in the distance beyond the boundaries of the city. He muttered under his breath for a few minutes before turning to look at the group. "I still haven't gotten any reply from that camp in the mountains…they haven't sent any reply yet"

"What camp?" Ash asked abruptly as he seemed to sense something change in the mood of the two Gym leaders.

"A small scientist research camp that was set up about a month or so ago" Mike explained "They claimed that they were there to study the mating habits of a group of Pidgy or something like that but haven't contacted us since. So, I can be assumed that either their all dead or they are hiding something very important from us"

"There's a jolly option" Jack muttered again as he glanced back towards the hospital before nodding to Nurse Joy, inclining his head slightly in respect as she turned and begun to walk away. She reached up and began pattering her hair as she tried to make herself look more presentable for the group of parents that were now gathering in the main entrance.

She was going to have one hell of a bad day…

"Right, time to get moving I think"

Again Ash looked up as Jack nodded and began to walk towards where the Charizard and Sceptile were stood, waiting for him now that they were no longer needed to keep order for Officer Jenney. His lab coat blew gently in the wind as he raised a Pokéball and the Sceptile vanished into an explosion of bright red before he climbed onto the back of his Charizard, reeling the dragon like Pokémon around so that it was facing towards Mike as he walked forward towards them.

"Hey, hold up there! You're going to that camp aren't you?"

The Charizard curved its neck as it saw Officer Jenney suddenly turn from the crowd and come running towards them, waving her arm in the air in an attempt to draw their attention. She glanced behind her to check that the crowd was calm enough to be left and nodded in satisfaction as she saw it break apart and split up.

"I'm coming with you" She finally declared as she reached them "This camp has been on my list of things look into since the day it was set up but I've been too busy to do so. I'll take my bike and meet you by the forest shrine"

"Err…sure thing officer" Jack grinned back as Mike pulled himself up. The massive wings on the side of the great Dragon began to beat and the Gym Leaders lifted into the air, circling the area one last time before flying off into the distance towards the mountain. Officer Jenney stared after them for a second before breaking into a run, hurling herself over her bike, and blasting off after them as he bike roared into life.

Then, for the first time of what felt like an age, the square before the Shadow City Hospital fell into silence…

Ash sighed as he saw Brock and Janise finally make their way towards them after deciding to simply watch the playing scene from the window of the café that Janise had brought them to. Pikachu called out as it leaped to the ground and ran towards him, pulling its self up his leg and onto his shoulder without out so much as pausing. Ash could hear Dawn, Brock and Janise mutter a few things between themselves before Janise simply clamped her hands together and turned to walk away, grinning warmly towards them.

"Well then, so we go after them?" She grinned "I have to say that I'm very curious as to what it is that this camp is really up to down there and I do love to stay on top of the gossip around here"

"Yer lets follow them!" Ash cheered as he ran to catch up with her, receiving a sudden burst of energy from the possibility of finding out what was going on again and getting another mystery to solve. As he ran by, he clamped his hand around Dawn's wrist and dragged her on behind him, calling out for her to keep up as she merely blushed after him.

…

"Dusk…" The Pokémon gave another hollow hiss as it watched the massive fire-type Pokémon carry its masters towards the mountain that it had once called home before its master had found and caught it. It could sense worry and anger boil from them and fear and excitement flow from the four people that were left in the square below as they began to make their own way from the hospital, all except the one woman…she was as calm as its master's master and she bore the same arrogance.

Again, the Pokémon's eye lazily rolled to the other side of its head as it tilted its body to look at its master as he stood and began to walk away, polishing the R on its chest. Its master's companion called out for him to wait as he jumped to his feet and ran after its master.

The Pokémon gave a hollow chuckle as it watched its master hold the door open for his companion before slamming it in his face at the very last second. Its eye twitched as it saw a trickle of blood run from its master's companion's nose before he re-opened the door and moved through. Once the door slammed shut again, the Pokémon turned to look back down towards the group below as they vanished from sight. They were all enemies of its master and it loved the feeling of anger that exploded from him whenever he looked at them. Its eye rolled to the side one last time as it felt something stir by the mountain before turning and vanishing through the still shut door.

Its master was calling for it…


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: Since the first second that I saw Darkrai in the trailer for 'Rise of Darkrai', I knew I had found my kind of Pokémon, one born of darkness…a villain Pokémon! Of course that was not how he ended up being in the film and as I have already stated, this is a story about how I first imagined Darkrai.

However, as I try to get over the sheer horror that I have felt after seeing some of the new Pokémon for the new game, one Pokémon stands out before me with much interest. There is now a Pokémon who is apparently the incarnation of darkness and destruction (making my beloved Darkrai is the incarnation of fear in my eyes) and his name is Zekrom…(needs better name)

I just wanted to say here that for all purposes of this story I will maintain the image of Darkrai being the Pokémon of darkness, putting it down to the fact that Zekrom had not been discovered at the of the stories events. However I will make a proposition, should you the public agree with it: If I can complete this story by spring when the game is released (Which I will not be happy with myself as it is if I don't) I will write a new story for Zekrom.

PM me to let me know what you think.

Anyway, I had a lot of trouble writing this chapter because I just couldn't get it right…and I'm still not happy with it as it is. No matter how many times I wrote it and re-wrote it I couldn't get it into a way that I like so I decided to just post it and move onto the next chapter which is when the fun begins if you know what I mean. So I've gotten this annoying chapter out of the way and now, let's begin with opening of the Shadow crystal…oops, spoilers :)

**Chapter 6:**

**The dark Alliance **

Star cursed as one of his grunts was hit square in the chest by enemy fire, watching helplessly as the man was hurled backwards and slammed against the metal pillar that stretched up behind them. Bolts of electricity ran across his body as he screamed before finally the man fell silent as he ceased movement, falling into only the odd twitch as the remaining electricity zapped across his muscles.

But Star had no time to think about him as he screamed for his remaining men to take cover, just catching glimpse of a couple of silhouettes moving through the smoke where he believed the enemy to be before he was himself forced to take cover as another sea of laser blasts cut through the air, leaving red dots on in their dozens across the wall around him as his brother grunts took whatever cover they could. He was again helpless to help as another was blasted in the shoulder by the incoming lasers blasts, sending his muscles into the agonizing dance of spasm before he too fell still.

He could hear the sounds of the enemy shouting out to one another as they spread out around his team, blasting the odd laser shot towards them as a warning to keep their heads down. He couldn't think of a plan on how to counter them, especially when he remembered that he had had all off his Pokémon taken from him earlier that day. He could hear his own men asking for orders but had none to give, only barely managing to repeat the order to stay in cover as he heard the enemy approach again. His team opened fire, but the enemy simply vanished into the smoke again, like they were shooting at ghosts rather than enemy grunts.

"All units fire at will, shoot anything that moves!" he heard someone shout out from nearby. No one had any idea which side the call came from however and suddenly both forces opened fire in a hail of violence, filling the air with a sea of laser shots that weren't even remotely aimed. There was an air of panic as another two of Stars grunts were hit, the twitching bodies falling down harshly as they were struck time and time again. People screamed as they returned fire into the white smoke that surrounded them, it was impossible to tell if they were hitting anything but it was panic that kept them firing at their invisible foes, shooting until the batteries of their weapons screamed out in protest and overheated, leaving them defenseless as the enemy grunts unleashed another, far more ferocious assault upon them.

And then, as suddenly as the chaos had come, it vanished.

Star blinked in confusion as he peeked over the edge of the wall he had taken cover behind, searching for his enemy but finding nothing. There had been a hail of shooting and then utter silence, no sign of hostility at all. His grunts murmured and whispered to each other as they looked towards him for advice, expecting him to have the answer to where the enemy had gone. There wasn't even the sound of voices to identify with their location anymore.

"Incoming!" Star cursed as he turned to see one of his grunts fall into a crouch and level his gun at a shape that seemed to be emerging from the smoke, spinning around as if it was dancing in the middle of the battle field. It swirled around like a snake in the mist before pausing as it seemed to notice them and hover in mid air, remaining silhouetted by the smoke as it seemed to tilt its head towards them, scrutinizing them. Then, after what felt like an age, the shape gave a final twirl in the air and glided towards them, emerging gracefully through the smoke as it zigzagged slowly through the air.

"You have got to be kidding me" Was all Star could bring himself to say as he recognized the thin body of the Pokémon as it glided towards him. He froze as he saw the soft tone of its pink skin and the kind nature that seemed to glisten from the large blue eyes that took up the bulk of its head beneath the two small cat like ears the stuck out from the top of its head. It's seemed to giggle softly as it spun around before them, catching its incredibly long tail in its tiny paw and playing with it innocently as if it was suddenly oblivious to the grunts presence. Then, with another giggle, it dropped its tail and flew gently into the air above their heads.

"Mew" it giggled as it smiled down at them, seeming to enjoy the fact that their attention was now entirely devoted towards it. The grunts themselves could only stair in amassment as one of the most legendary Pokémon hovered above them, a Pokémon that many claimed to not even exist, and in the middle of a battlefield of all places.

"Errrr….can someone explain to me what the hell is going on?"

Suddenly, the Mew's head snapped downward as it heard one of the grunts speak up. it gave another squeak of its name, only much more harsh than the last time as it seemed to grow angry with the grunts below as it suddenly lowered down till it was eye-level with the grunts. Then with an almost mechanical growl, its eyes began to expand.

"Mew" It whispered almost softly as its eyes spread out into a couple of funnel like appendages which it pointed towards them.

Star barely had time to realize what was happening before the two laser gun built into the Mew's head opened fire…

….

From a large platform above them Domino sighed as she saw the team of Team Rocket grunts get gunned down.

Cursing, she pulled her hat off and wiped the sweat from her brow, winching as her glove rubbed against a cut that she had sustained during her time in the forest the day before. She had spent the bulk of the night after the failed expedition into the tomb heading back towards the base, finding that for some reason her sense of direction was out of tune or something…it had taken her two hours to make a fifteen minute journey. At what had she found when she got back? A group of Team Rocket members being cut down by a robotic Mew!

(A/N: As a reward for getting a question right, I offered 'Twilight- The Moon Spirit' the chance to have anything he wanted to happen in this chapter, he said that he wanted a random Mew cameo and so there it is!)

"You got to give those Dim Sun guys credit, they can really use their machinery"

Domino only grunted as she turned to see a woman move to stand beside her, leaning across the balcony as she looked down at the testing ground. The sound of a siren filled the air as the testing round came to an end and the grunts seemed to come back from the dead, their raised voices betraying their lack of organization as the Rocket grunts blamed each other for the defeat and the Dim Sun's high-fived each other, one using a tri-pod mounted computer to call the robotic Mew back before the Rocket team could get their hands on it.

"Oh come on Domino" The woman chuckled as she turned back to face the Rocket elite, brushing a strand of red hair behind her ears as she grinned "you can't maintain this opposition against the alliance for long"

Domino was silent as she stared at the wall, folding her arms in irritation as she saw the woman straighten her sci-fi reject uniform from the corner of her eye. Struggled to think of what she should say in reply…she herself wasn't entirely sure how she felt now about the alliance. Then, with a sigh, she decided to resort to her usual failsafe whenever she felt pinned…attack.

"Easy for you to say Mars" she retorted finally, still avoiding eye contact "When Cyrus abandoned you in Shinnoh you didn't even try to keep Team Galactic going, you just started fighting and broke apart after a failed attempt on a damn Heatran"

For some reason, Domino took no satisfaction from the look of anger that filled Commander Mars' face as she took a step back, her eyes narrowing as she examined Domino for any trace of amusement or sarcasm. Finding none she fell silent as she again turned to look at the two trainee teams below as they began to leave the arena below. Her red eyes seemed to shimmer slightly as she looked down, a strange look of sorrow falling upon her as she seemed to fall deep in thought.

"Sorry"

"It's ok Domino" Mars sighed as she straightened her uniform around her, allowing her hand to hesitate for a moment over the golden G that she still sat proudly on the centre of her chest. "We both tend to get rather hostile when our past teams come into the topic"

Domino didn't need to say anything as she twirled an Orchid around her fingers as she always did whenever she felt uneasy.

It was strange really. She despised practically everything the alliance had done to Team Rocket and wouldn't give the time of day to any members of the coalition teams, yet here she was apologizing to one of the three Team Galactic leaders.

The truth was, though she would never admit it, Domino had rather grown to like Mars. They had met in the first week of the alliance and sat next to each other whenever they were called for at the alliance's council. Then, to top it all off, they had both been placed in charge of training the new recruits in the art of fighting for the alliance.

At first of course, they had both completely ignored each other wherever possible. They both hated the idea of their teams joining with others and took every opportunity they could to make that very clear to the other. But, after Mars had randomly decided to help Domino in scolding a failed recruit, they had both eventually been able to find a neutral ground upon which they both stood and that, over the course of the months that the alliance had been together, had evolved into a strange friendship between the two. Domino hadn't really noticed it, but she allowed Mars to speak to her in a much less formal way then she would allow even a fellow Team Rocket high level even think about talking to her and she talked to Mars in the same way, even managing to get a couple of laughs out of each other when they were alone.

A/N: I couldn't resist a partnership between my favorite Team Rocket member and my favorite Team Galactic member

"Who was the commander of that Rocket group?"

"Some new guy calling himself Star" Domino snouted as she tossed a notepad onto the desk behind her in annoyance "One arrogant sod who seems to have decided that he is the best the alliance has to offer. Under his job application for special skills he just put down the 'you name it…especially talking to the girls'"

"You're kidding me right? How the hell did someone like that get a placement here"

"From what we've seen in this training job, the alliance is taking just about anyone they can get their hands on now"

Mars cursed as she leaned against the railing that surrounded the viewing platform she could use to look out onto the training room. She seemed tired as she watched the last of the smoke from the exercise drift off into the air. The training protocol was not a must for all new recruits to the alliance as it was the perfect way of weeding out those that were too weak, such as this Star.

They recruits were split up into two teams depending on which of the old teams they suited most, further cementing the appearance that the old team name was now nothing more than a class in the overall body of the alliance, and had all of their Pokémon taken from them for the course of the exercise. They were then all fitted with laser sensitive jackets and provided with a harmless laser tag gun which would provide now bodily harm but would set of the sensors of the jacket should they be hit. The two teams were then let loose into the fake battlefield and tasked with the simple objective of defeating the other team by setting of their jackets, just like in one of those popular laser tag games. However, in order to assist in the idea of them fearing the prospect of getting shot, every jacket was equipped with electrodes that activated should the jackets sensors be activated, providing a very nasty shock to the victim which put them out of action for the rest of the exercise but left no permanent side effects beyond the obvious humiliation.

"So who have we got coming in next?"

"Some guys from Team Magma and Aqua having a rematch for something that one of them said about the other or whatever…I don't really care"

"ATTENTION" a heavily static filled female voice suddenly screamed out over the bases speakers, blasting out from every inch of the base. It was deafeningly loud as it screamed out, causing both team commanders to cover their ears with snarls "WILL COMMANDER MARS AND AGENT 009 PLEASE REPORT TO THE MAIN COUNCIL ROOM IMMEDIATELY"

"Oh boy"

….

"Hey watch it!"

Ash yelled out as he felt an arm wrap around his neck and pull him backwards in a rough gesture that caused him to stumble and fall harshly upon the ground. He looked up accusingly towards his aggressor but found him to be already stood and staring out towards the patch that Ash had only seconds before been walking on.

"You want to be watching where it is that you're walking out here mate" Jack grinned, raising his eyebrows towards the young trainer as he gestured towards where a Muk was clawing its way across the path that Ash had just been about to step in "You so much as touch that thing and you would be in bed with a fever for weeks"

The poison Pokémon hissed and gurgled as it looked towards them before dragging its body across towards the other side of the path, gurgling in annoyance as a group of Ninjask burst out of a hedge that it smashed through on its way. Its voice bubbled and hissed as its liquid tar-like throat caved in upon each itself and reformed from a mass of tar again and again. As it passed over, the hedge and any other vegetation unfortunate to get caught beneath it began to hiss and boil as the toxins that formed the Pokémon's body, every leaf and flower shriveling and dying in seconds. Again the Pokémon gave a gurgled cry before it vanished into the undergrowth, leaving a trail of rotten brown vegetation in its wake.

"Errrr…thanks"

"Don't mention it" Jack simply stated as he turned and jogged a couple of feet to catch up with JR who was searching through a large set of plants for something not entirely obvious, leaving his behind as Dawn reached him and gave him a mocking look.

"The day Ash thinks before acting is the day he stops being Ash" was all she said as she walked by, her arms folded behind her back in a strangely arrogant pose without so much as glancing towards him as she continued down the path.

"Keep it down will you. We are trying to keep a low profile out here" Officer Jenny whispered as she climbed on top of a fallen tree and began scanning her surroundings, writing a couple of notes down in her pocket notebook.

"Sorry"

The group of six had left their cars and bike by the main road that passed through the forest and continued through the undergrowth as discreetly as they could at Officer Jenny's request. They were not sure if they could trust this camp that they were heading too and thus had decided to make their arrival a secret, if these 'scientists' were responsible for the earthquakes then they were going to find out about it.

"So…we got any stories to pass the time?"

"What type of stories are you after?" Mike asked, raising an eyebrow slightly as he looked back down the path towards him.

"I don't know, anything. Tell me about you two. How did you become gym leaders?"

"Wasn't hard really. We just had to get a badge from every gym in the region, prove ourselves to the local Pokémon league, get the signed approval of at least three other gym leaders and even get approval from the geishas in the Johto region, just a lot of really annoying red tape that was more of a bother than a challenge"

"Put simple, I whole lot of red tape" Jack added briefly as he watched JR suddenly give up on what it was looking for and begin strolling happily down the forest path again, seeming to decided it would be more fun to scare the Riolu that was sniffing the air a few feet away "Still, after we had permission to form a gym we had to find an appropriate place to build it and so on. The league helped us to fund everything and obviously Officer Jenny here was a tremendous help during it all"

"My please, with two gym leaders around to do some of the work of keeping order in the city my job became a lot easier"

"Naw, its quiet fun being able to boss people around like we ca…"

Mike froze suddenly as he saw his own partner Pokémon give a snarl before abruptly changing it course and disappearing slowly through a set of bushes, leaving the Mime JR that had been about to jump it playfully from behind to crash to the ground with a confused yelp.

"What's got him so riled up?" Jack muttered as he knelt down and allowed the now sulking JR to climb up onto his shoulder before sighing as all Mike did was shrug before following. The lab-coat wearing Gym leader gave their companions an apologetic look before following.

…

Janise yawned loudly as she leaned her chair back and rested her feet crossed upon the top of the cars dashboard, twirling her hair around her finger absentmindedly as she stared out through the front window as a flock of bird Pokémon flew across the sky in their usual sunset dance, twirling and dancing around each other in a beautiful pattern. Spearow flew down and shot across upwards again, mere inches away from a couple of Starly that then seemed to scream out at each other as they flew high into the air, spinning faster and faster as they flew into the air, zigzagging with each other.

Janise could only sigh as she watched them fly up until they were blotted out by the blood red glare of the setting sun and then began plummeting down towards the ground at impossible speeds. She didn't even react or blink as their bodies were suddenly consumed with a blinding white glow that covered every inch of them, leaving nothing but a glowing silhouette that began to heave and expand as it seemed to cave in upon itself as reform into a shape altogether different, resembling its former shape in nothing more than its bird like appearance. They fell towards the ground until the very last second when their wings shrunk inwards and blasted outwards, dispelling the white glow with a single strong flex as their new bodies lunged into the air again and resumed their dance as another group of small birds flew into the air and began repeating the glowing fall.

"The dance of evolution…" Janise muttered as she yawned again. That was what people called it when a large group of Pokémon met up and joined each other in the process of evolution. It was not a common sight and many would go their entire lives without even seeing it, but Janise had seen it far too many times to actually care about it anymore. In fact the only time that she really paid attention to it was in the middle of spring when the entre forests worth of Metapod would hatch as one and unleash a seemingly never ending sea of Butterfree that danced against the full moon for hours on end before eventually spreading dispersing and going their own ways at sunrise.

_Knock-knock_

Janise paused for a second as her eyes flicked out the side window to find no one stood there, her eye brow rising slightly as another pair of knocks sounded out against the door with no obvious cause then a Pidgy that flew by a few feet away as it too was consumed by the blinding light that marked the dawn of its evolution.

Then a tiny purple head appeared at the bottom of the window, catching Janise with an almost scary Cheshire Cat grin as two wide eyes starred directly at her, the displaced wind from another passing bird type Pokémon flying by catching its purple fur in a storm of movement. Janise stared back as the Pokémon seemed to laugh at some secret joke before it raised its tail and used the strange hand like limb at the end to bang against the cars window again, its oversized head tilting slightly as it asked to be let in.

The two simply stared at each other for a time before Janise grinned slightly and pushed open the door, grunting in pain as the small Pokémon gave a cry of joy and leaped onto her, its legs pushing down on her stomach as it used her as a platform to leap up onto the cars dash board and sat down happily beside her crossed feet, looking out at the birds as it tried to mimic Janise's own bored expression as best it could.

"So…you have a good day out playing?"

"Aipom!"

"Ah, that's good"

Janise smiled again as she felt herself somehow relax as she watched the small monkey like Pokémon try to hide its happy expression as it watched a couple of Starly dance around each other. Aipom was the closest thing to a friend she had had for the longest time, it had been there for her when she was young and was still here for her now, even if it did like to go out a play in the forest for a day or two. She had never actually 'caught' it, there was no point as it had just sort of attached itself to her. It had been with her through a lot of hard times and thus she was proud to have it as what some trainers might call a 'Partner Pokémon'.

Content with each other's presence, the two fell silent as they watched the last of the bird Pokémon begin to evolves

….

Domino sighed as she looked around the table, taking in the various faces that seemed to glow against the unusual red glow that emitted from the various lights that hung from the ceiling in a strangely irregular pattern.

There were members from every Team in existence present at the council, Higher-ups from Team Rocket, Team Galactic, Team Aqua, Team Magma, Team Dim-Sun and, in the shadows to the back, a representative of the new organization, Team Plasma which was still trying to decide if it was going to join the alliance or not yet.

"This is ridiculous" she moaned as she allowed her head to fall into her gloved hands, keeping her voice as quite as possible so that only Mars could hear her.

"Just bare with it" She heard Mars whisper back to her from the chair next to her left, nudging her with her elbow in order to tell Domino to be more alert as someone important looked their way, a warning that domino deliberately ignored.

"Not one for these meetings are you?"

Domino sighed again as she heard a smooth voice come from the her right, lifting her head in order to cast whoever had dared speak to her like that with her best death glare, only to find herself coming face to face with a man whose face was barely visible behind a pair of sunglasses and a neck color that reached up all the way to the top of his nose.

"What's it to you?" she snarled as her eyes drifted down to the purple symbol that had been printed onto his chest, a strange symbol that resembled a winged shell like shape. "Team Dim-Sun Huh?" she remarked "Can't say that I'm going to be listening to any back talk from one of you anytime soon"

The man merely chuckled as he looked away, allowing his head to fall backwards against his chair as if he was falling asleep, his absurdly styled hair being held in place without so much as shaking at his head movement.

"The hell is that guy?" Domino whispered to Mars as she eyed him in annoyance.

"Oh he's one of the admen's for Team Dim-Sun from what I know. Names Kincaid or something like that" Mars simply retorted with a dismissive flick of her wrist as she turned to looked at the empty head of the table again "I'm more concerned about who in their right mind would call a meeting with the greatest criminals in the world and then be late to it"

That was a good point. The council had been called a full half hour ago and still there was no sign of the man who would call himself the leader of the alliance, even if there were very few people in the room who would agree with him in that claim. This was a gathering of some of the most feared men the world and they were all now voicing together their annoyance at the one man who seemed to refuse to come to his own calling. If he didn't get there soon then things were going to turn ugly.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!"

A strange silence seemed to fall across the room as the gathered criminals suddenly fell silent and turned to look at the entrance where three figures were making their way into the room, trying to hide an obviously fear filled moment for them behind an act of arrogance as they simply strode in and took a set of seats that had been placed out along the back. There they sat in silence for a moment fighting in their seats as they tried to avoid the piercing eyes of the gathered crime lords before the slowly leaned in on each other and began to whisper.

"Errrr….sound we introduce ourselves?" One whispered, an incredibly small figure that didn't look quite human.

"But most of them already know who we are" whispered another, a man with short hair that seemed to flicker a deep blue whenever it caught the light.

"Oh who cars about that" the third snapped, her voice sounding quite aggressive as she patted her massive hair that stood completely erect on the back of her head and seemed to curl slightly at the back in an ridiculously impractical fashion that should have by all right made her head to heavy to move. "Let's do it for the benefit who haven't been graced by our presence yet"

A/N:What? Damned if I can make any realistic reason behind anime hair…especially hers

What happened next was confusing for the gathered criminals if nothing else…

The three figures suddenly cheered as they jumped up and struck what were supposed to look like dramatic poses and began to recite.

"Prepare for trouble!" the woman declared as she held her left arm up, pointing towards the star

"And make it double!" the blue haired man added, placing his hand against his chin and a clichéd 'cool' pose.

"To renounce the evils of truth and love!"

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

"A rose by any other na…"

"Finish that sentence and I swear to god you are gonna have an orchid embedded in your skull before you can say your own damn name!"

The entire room burst out laughing as they saw the dumbfounded expressions that flashed across the faces of the three people, one of them dropping from the shoulders of the other two to reveal that it was actually a Meowth as it rolled into view. The two humans went through a barrage of emotions in the space of a few seconds as their fear slipped into anger at having their trademark speech interrupted and then into worry again as they caught a glance of Domino's expression again.

"Hey" someone shouted out from the table "why don't you three make yourselves useful and get us some drinks!"

"Yer" Another cried "bought all your good for here"

A/N: Sorry fans of those three Team Rocket members. I don't hate them but I have come to find them quite annoying after so many years of them failing at everything. I don't mean to be overly cruel to them in this

"Now, now. There is no call to be rude"

The entire room fell silent as a soft voice sounded out around them, speaking out the same as would be expected should the speaker have been talking to a bunch of children. Eyes flicked from each other as they searched for who had spoken before a figure emerged from the shadows at the far end of the room with a low chuckle.

The leader of the alliance had finally arrived.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: This is the beginning now, in this chapter the whole introduction part of the story comes to a complete close and we finally get to the fun part. Who is the mysterious founder of the alliance? What is his plan and how does it fit in with the shadow crystal? All are answered in this chapter and more.

Chapter 7:

Lord of the alliance

"Damn"

No one replied to Jack as they moved through the devastated playground, eyes running across the trail of destruction that had been wrote through the place of innocence. There was no doubt that it was the playground that had been the sight of the attack earlier that day that had sent so many children to hospital, Officer Jenney and the gym leaders had known that it was around that area but had never pinned its location down, intending to leave it for the children to escape reality.

Now it was in ruins…

Seesaws lay in pieces with massive claw marks dug into the side and slides made from heavy oak and been tossed away as if they had weighed nothing at all. Large benches had been shattered or ripped in two and here and there lay torn backpacks, abandoned by their owners in the few moments of mad panic that had followed the wild Pokémon's attack.

"Kids never stood a chance"

"I just don't see how this could happen" Dawn muttered as she knelt down and examined one of the backpacks, running her finger along the long tear that had been sliced through its centre. "I've never heard of Pokémon openly attack innocents like this. Pokémon are supposed to be kind and only knock each other out at most when they fight. How can they be killing so readily?"

"Something's interfering with them" Jenney muttered as she wrote something down in her notebook "Something big. Your right when you say that Pokémon don't usual kill, but they have the ability to kill within each of them just as humans do. I'm no Pokémon scientist but from what I know, every Pokémon has a sort of psychic barrier in their sub-conscious that prevents them from allowing their attacks to become so powerful that they kill. They don't openly notice that it's there; they just fail to raise the power to lethal capacity. However, it is possible to overcome this power. That was how the wars of legend were fought, the ancient armies would capture Pokémon and force them to fight in such a way that they became like animals and would kill each other on the battlefield. It can also be canceled out by a strong psychic presence or if the Pokémon itself truly wanted to kill"

"I don't think that any Pokémon would really want to kill anyone"

"Then you are a very lucky girl"

Dawn's confused look quickly changed to worry as she turned round to confront who ever had spoken, only to find herself with Jack's face leaning in towards her, his eyes filled with a mixture of pain and anger at something. His lab coat blew harshly in a sudden burst of wind as his fists clenched in their pockets and his glasses slide down his nose slightly. Behind him, Mike too had fallen still as he stood beside a ruined chair.

"I'm sorry to break this to you Dawn" Jack muttered as he stared at her "But this world isn't all happy and rainbows like we all believe when we first start off on our journeys into the Pokémon world. Sure, most Pokémon are kind and willing to befriend humanity but there are those that just prefer to be left alone. And then…there are those that wish to simply destroy and kill"

"Have you ever met a Pokémon like that?"

Jack fell silent as he stared at her before looking to the ground and walking away as his eyes seemed to fade and his entire face fell into a look of depression. His eyes never left the ground as he walked to the far side of the ruined playground and fell still save to exchange a glance with Mike. Even their two partner Pokémon, who were usually so energetic, had become affected by the silence that had taken their trainers.

"You shouldn't have asked that question"

Dawn frowned as she turned to see Officer Jenny step up from the overturned seesaw and glance towards the two gym leaders with a strangely pained expression. Behind her, Ash walked up to them, allowing his Pikachu to leap from his shoulder and run over to where JR and Dante were busy digging through a pile of ripped wood and tree leaf.

"Why not?"

"Well you see…" Officer Jenny paused, as if she was struggling to find the correct worlds to use to say what she wanted to "Our two gym leaders are two of the nicest people you could meet…but they have been through a lot in their rise to this position and have faced against something that they refuse to ever talk about. I like to think that I have a good relationship with them and Nurse Joy and I have often had long chats with them about their journeys as Pokémon trainers before they became gym leaders. How they were often joined by a group of friends they liked to call 'Legion', how they faced against psychotic robot built and abandoned by Team Rocket, even how they caught every one of their Pokémon and the long tails behind them. They had some really interesting stories behind them…but…they refuse to talk about what happened around some sections of that journey. All I know is that they faced against 'a Pokémon born of hate' as they called it. They will never say anymore than that but I know that it affected them for the worse and that it has a lot to do with why Jack's Blastoise is as angry as it is"

A/N: You can read all of that in my new 'Trainers Trails' series that has just been released. It will detail the events that the two Gym Leaders went through. It will detail the turn from happiness to the battle against this Pokémon (but with a lot of comedy mixed in to make it happier than this story is going to be). Anyway, why not go and check it out?

"So…they fought a Pokémon that wanted only to kill?"

"Big deal" Ash suddenly declared "I've faced loads of Pokémon, many of whom were legendaries even, who were trying to hurt people and I managed to make all of them nice by the end. Why didn't they just talk to this evil Pokémon?"

"You think we didn't try that!"

Even Officer Jenny showed a trace of shock as Jack suddenly swung round and took another step towards them, evidently having heard their exchange

"You think we didn't try to reason with it? With the Pokémon that single handedly destroyed everything we valued once. It wouldn't listen to any reason save its own hate. We fought against it to defend the lives of our friends and family and it very nearly took that all away from us. You claim to have faced evil Pokémon Ash? Well have you ever seen the sheer hate that can consume them? Have you ever seen the pleading look for help that flashes across a Pokémon's eyes as they die at the hands of a monster that you unleashed and have no power of stopping? When you face against that, then come back to me and say you know what a Pokémon of hate is and I will listen…but until then don't you dare say another word about it"

"What Pokémon was it that did this to you then?"

Jack was silent as he looked at Ash, a flash of water flying from behind his glasses as he turned and walked away again in silence. Pausing only to whisper another word before heading back of towards the Mike, glancing sadly at where the three partner Pokémon were still busy digging.

"Gengar…"

A/N: He is coming…

* * *

Domino remembered thinking that you could have cut the tension in the air with a knife as the gathered crime lords watched the man who had summoned them step out of the darkness that bathed the rear entrance to the room. Everyone of them holding their breath as he paused at the top of the table, piercing blue eyes scrolling across every face present before simply nodding and sitting down on the chair that lay at the head, crossing his legs and folding his fingers around each other as he leaned forward and used his elbows to support himself.

He was not what you would expect to see at the head of the greatest criminal alliance in history. A short, tubby man with long girly hair and wide glasses that seemed to completely cover his eyes which glowed over a thin mouth that curled upwards in a strange smile as he took in the various expressions he could see before him. He was dressed in a white suit that somehow looked too big for him and a pair of white gloves that ended somewhere up his sleeve. He would have looked almost comical if it wasn't for the strange atmosphere of danger that he gave off as he rested his chin on the top of his hands and sat in silence.

"I apologize for keeping you all waiting" he smiled, he voice smooth and calm despite the fact that he was talking to the most dangerous men in the world, like he already knew exactly how the minds of everyone of them worked and could predict every thought and idea that may have possibly crossed their even their subconscious "I was delayed with dealing with something important and couldn't ignore it. But it seems that I arrived just in time before you managed to go off and put my guests of honor under any further humiliation. But oh well, that's life I suppose"

His grin never left his face as he spoke, seeming to enjoy every twitch of discomfort or embarrassment that crossed across the different team commanders around him. After what felt like an age of silence again however, he raised one of his hands and clicked his fingers, waiting until one of the men behind him slipped a notepad into his hand before clearing his throat, dismissing the man with a simple flick of his wrist without so much as glancing behind him.

"Now then, shall we call this meeting into action then? We have much to discuss today and if everything goes to plan then we will have to wait a long time before we can have yet another meeting so I want to get as much done as possible" His every word was filled with arrogance as he used a single index finger to push his glasses further back up his nose before continuing "Now, the first thing I want to talk to you all about is something of the utmost importance. Did anyone catch the last episode of 'I hear you like Mudkip!' I will simply die if I don't get to talk to anyone about it!"

No one quite knew how they were supposed to react as their boss suddenly started giggling and almost seemed to bounce up and down on his chair in a childhood excitement as he looked around the group, looking for an answer. Domino found herself exchanging a glance with Mars as they tried to work out with he was serious or not and if they should reply to him or not.

"Errrr…Sir" Someone finally voiced, a man that Mars whispered to be called Mack, an admin of Team Magma "I'm afraid that I can't see the relevance in that question to anything. We didn't come here to talk about some child's program; we came here to talk about Pokémon"

"Well" The boss said, seeming somewhat deflated by Mack's tone "I understand that many people find 'I hear you like Mudkip' to be a little repetitive at times but I like it. But I suppose if that's how you all feel about it then I guess we can move on. It's a shame though really, you're missing a hell of a funny show you know"

"Errr…I'll remember that sir"

"Oh, just call me Reggie" The boss grinned as Mack sat back down again "there is no point trying to be so formal here. Anyway, if we are going to be moving on to the more pressing topics then I suppose I should call our guests forward to give their report about what they claim to be a real threat to our operations here. I have told them not to tell me about it before so I can have the fun of hearing it along with you all. Now then, Jessie, James and Meowth…the stage is all yours"

This time it was the trio that felt awkward as they slowly rose to their feet and made their way to the centre of the room and looked around at the gathered crime lords.

"Errr…" James said as he seemed to fumble for the right words to say, casting a last pleading look towards the two behind him before clearing his throat and attempting to regain his composure "Most of you have probably met my team and myself before and have therefore probably met the reason that your plan could be in danger. You see these Twerps have been somehow present at every major attempt that all of our teams have made to gain power, and have every time been able to stop us on every occasion"

"Yer" One of the seated crime lords called out, someone who even Domino recognized, without any help from Mars she noted happily, as being someone who had once been in charge of the funds of Team Rocket "and every time we have given you enough funds to build some unimaginable collection of robots and technology and each time you managed to have get blown high into the sky in the most humiliating manner imaginable. And why do you keep spending so much on those damn Meowth shaped hot air balloons. I mean come on! Can there be anything more obvious for the enemy to recognize than that!"

"Hey!" The Meowth that had stood with the two speakers cried out "What's wrong with the Meowth balloons? I think their awesome"

"Oh yer thanks for reminding me. How the hell did we end up on spending so much money on training that Pokémon to speak when all we have done is dumped it onto these idiots…I mean I was there when we gave it to them because it was just pissing Giovanni of but come on! Surely there was a more practical use for it. These three have become nothing more than an eye sore for our teams and they shouldn't even be here…."

"That's enough" Reggie shouted suddenly as he stepped forward, clapping his hands together as if he was talking to a bunch of pre-scholars "If we can't speak nicely to my guests then I suppose I will have to give their message myself. I apologies to all three of you, Jessie, James and Meowth but I guess that the council has spoken on this matter. Now, to sum up what they were saying, we have a group of people who I suppose you could call your old friends coming to visit us just as we come to our most glorious moment.

Pausing for a moment as he spoke he rose a Pokéball and allowed it to release a small blob of goo that hissed and gargled as it appeared on the table. There was a moment's pause before the two dot like eyes which swirled around in the goo glanced up towards Reggie before shimmering as it took a new form, morphing crudely into the form of a young boy with a red cap that grinned up towards them. A heavy sea of mummers and cursing suddenly burst among the gathered crime lords as they recognized the boy before them. The trio that had just returned to their seats strengthened up almost instantly whilst the various other members made their own methods of tension, either staring cruelly at the slightly bubbling image of the boy, which shimmered as the goo Pokémon still tried to revisit the urge to return to its true form, cursing loudly, twirling a thorn covered orchid around or clutching a Pokéball tightly in a vain attempt to vent frustration.

"Now" Reggie continued as he lay his hand on the table and allowed his transformed Pokémon to step onto his hand "From what I can gather one of them, a boy named Ash, has been at almost every major event that our organizations have been commencing in the past few years and, despite his age, has been able to stop us at every turn. Now, whether or not this was from a strange series of good luck or your own incompetence I am not going to say, sophist to say that I am not going to allow it to happen again. This child has been designated a major threat to our operations, despite his appearances, and I have placed on of my best operatives onto his 'case' so to speak. If he does anything that could even remotely impair our operations here then he will be dealt with accordingly"

In order to emphasize his point, the small image of Ash that still stood on his hand began to melt and fall apart, his arms shattering at the shoulders and falling freely, only to explode like balloons filled to bursting with water as they slammed against his flesh. The knees melted into themselves and, in the space of only two or so seconds, there was nothing more than a dripping pool of pink goo in Reggie's hand which, after a little nudge, reformed back into the shapeless form of the Pokémon as the two dot-like eyes returned and a small mouth like shape smiled up to them.

"Thank you for yet another flawless demonstration Ditto" Reggie smiled as he rose his Pokéball and retracted it, tossing the ball into the air and catching it one handed as if out of boredom a couple of times before placing it back into his pocket and turning back to the council, humming the 'I hear you like Mudkip' theme gently to himself.

"I'm sorry" Jessie called out suddenly from the back of the hall, trying to ignore the mass of rolling eyes that followed yet another announcement of her presence in the room "But why don't you just deal with the twerps right now? Don't give them the chance to interfere with our work"

"Why you ask?" Reggie smiled, he grin seeming cruel as he again used his index finger to push his glasses up his nose "Because the random murder of three innocent children is not in my overall plan at the moment. I will not make the first move against them. However, if they decided to get involved in this then it is not my fault and my agent will act in whatever way they deems necessary. No sooner and no later"

If Jessie was going to make any more complaints then they was immediately silenced as a grunt came barging in through the door, the golden G on his uniform barely visible as he ran up to Reggie and whispered something to him, nodding and giving a respecting bow to the gathered team leaders before leaving after a dismissive flick of the Boss' wrist.

"It would appear" He began, speaking slowly as if he was simply trying to sound more dramatic then he would have anyway "That the second team I sent into the cave that Domino and her…late…crew managed to uncover in their operations there. Though one of their crew somehow managed to find himself isolated from the group and is still missing, our people have located the legendary Shadow Crystal and are currently in the process of bringing it to the surface. I now move to end this council early and the representatives of each of our organizations and myself will make our way to the dig sight now and enjoy the show!"

* * *

"Pika, Pikachu!"

Ash ran over to his partner as fast as he could as the small yellow mouse like Pokémon suddenly began jumping on the spot and waving in an attempt to draw the gathered trainers attention to it. Leaning down beside it, he found the two gym leader's Pokémon, JR and Dante, to be pulling to small form of a Plusle out from beneath the rubble they had been digging at.

"Nice work JR" Jack whispered as he appeared to help them, resting a hand on his partner Pokémon gently. He still looked depressed over whatever memories talk of his past trials had brought up but was now moving more energetically as he noticed that the Plusle was still breathing "Anybody got a healing Pokémon on them?"

"Well yer, Brock's got a….hey where is Brock?"

Dawn looked around in confusion at Ash's question. That was a very good point. It had been a while since she had seen Brock but she had been so caught up in the emotion of the moment of finding the ruined playground and then Jack's sudden outburst that she hadn't really noticed…mean to Brock as that might seem. He had been with them when they had left Janise by the car but had simply vanished somewhere along the line.

"Never mind that right now" Officer Jenny said as she knelt down next to the injured Pokémon and pulled out a small spray that she had held in her bag. Brushing a strand of hair from her eyes as she raised it to where the small Pokémon seemed to be the most injured and sprayed gently, using a small tissue to dab at the wound once she was done "I always keep a couple of potions and elixirs on me just in case"

"Good thinking"

She was as gentle as she could be as she slowly lifted the electric type Pokémon up in her arms, cradling it almost like a baby, with the small Mime JR and Riolu watching her intently whilst Pikachu leapt back onto his trainers shoulders…with JR doing the same a few seconds later. The gathered trainers all stood in silence as they watched the potion take its affect and the small Pokémon's began red tipped ears began to twitch and its tail moved slightly for a second.

"He's going to be ok" Officer Jenny smiled as she rested it against an overturned tree, nodding in satisfaction as Dante moved to the side in order to stand almost protectively over it "though this little guy is lucky to be alive at all after what happened"

"Good to have some good news for once" Dawn sighed as she looked down at the now calmly sleeping Pokémon. After all the chaos of the day, it was nice to hear that something was going to get through it all well and she savored the moment of relief as if it were her last.

She had the bad feeling that this was going to be the last bit of good news she was going to have in a long time…

* * *

Grunts lined along in perfect unison as they heard the deafening roar of the helicopter as it flew over the tree line before them, uniforms of every possible organization being blown widely in the heavy wind as the chopper flew down. The long transport craft dipped slightly as it began its decent and every grunt straightened as they saw it turn to have the passenger door facing towards them, tow long rows of grunts, one on each side of a long red carpet forming a professional welcoming party for the arrival of their higher up commanders. They held their breath with anticipation as they heard the soft thud of the helicopter landing and roar of the blades die down as it fell still with its landing.

"Attention!"

As one their legs snapped into position, a heavy thud sounding out in unison as they carried out their well rehearsed drill as the door of the helicopter opened and the occupants stepped out into the now almost set sunlight.

"Oh nicely done!" the leader of the disembarking crowd called out, who those in the know called Reggie, clapping his hands together as he walked forward. He was a short, fat man that somehow had a presence that demanded the respect from those who looked upon him. "A fine example of what my new alliance aims to achieve. Your work here has been a credit to your teams and I am sure that there will be a reward waiting for you back at our base once we head home. But for now, make your presence here known to the representatives of your team that have accompanied me here and I'm sure they will arrange a reward. But first, show me where this great shadow crystal is! I simply can't wait any longer to see it!"

* * *

"Hey guys! I think you might want to come see this!"

The gathered trainers turned as they saw Brock brake through the tree line, his Croagunk running along side of him as he glanced behind him as if expecting to have someone following him.

"What is it Brock?"

"I found that camp" The Pokémon breeder cried out as he reached them, not even seeming to notice the fact that Officer Jenny had asked him a question "And it's no simple mining camp"

"What do you mean?"

The only reply he gave was to grab Ash by the wrist and drag him through the trees, barely dodging the various branches and rocks that reached out as if to intentionally trip them over. He didn't speak as he heard the others cry out after him or when Croagunk appeared beside him, pulling the Pokémon along after it. Even Ash was silent as they ran, seeming to trust in Brock enough to know that it must have been something important that he had found to get him so riled up….either that or he had found a really attractive woman.

When they reached a long clearing in the forest however, what Ash saw was enough to make his blood run cold...

* * *

Reggie was almost hopping on the spot as he watched the Pokémon drag the object out of the gaping hole that the digging teams had torn into the side of the mountain, folding his arms behind him in a vain attempt at finding something to do with them.

Judging from the report he had read over during the helicopter ride here, the digging forces had been forced to resort to extreme measures in order to get to the central hall, using everything from exploding Voltorbs to high power drills and it had gathered up more and more expense then he would have liked but that loss was nothing compared to what he was about to gain from what was coming. From what he was about to do.

Turning around, he couldn't help but smile as he saw a couple of Scyther staring out at him from the undergrowth. From what he could gather, the wild Pokémon that hadn't been driven to violence by whatever psychic force his new treasure had unleashed had all begun to converge on the dig site as if they thought that they could somehow stop his masterpiece. As if they thought that they could stop the dance of events he had set in motion years ago.

How foolish.

Reggie chuckled as he pushed his glasses back up his nose once again and reached into his pocket, pulling out one of his two Pokéballs at sheer random before tossing it over his back and allowing whatever Pokémon held within to be released into the world.

Casting a glance behind him, he nodded in satisfaction as he saw the massive form of a Drapion rise into a standing position and let loose a loud screech that sent the weary Scyther flying away in panic The scorpion like only Pokémon hissed as it saw them flee, seemingly disappointed in the lack of combat before turning to fix its owner with a stern glare which it maintained before Reggie nodded and turned away to look back towards the mouth of the cave, returning to his anticipation at the surfacing of his new treasure.

* * *

"Well…that just perfect"

Ash nodded his agreement to Dawn as he glanced to his left to see Jack exchange a worried glance with his partner gym leader and Officer Jenny as they looked down at the massive camp before them, a sea of people wearing uniforms from every criminal organization that he had ever heard of, people from every party or movement that spelt trouble for the rest of the world. Glowing letters seemed to ripple and pulsate atop of a group of flags that surround the camp as the wind blew down on them, blood red Rs, bright gold Gs, Ms, As and even a small P that Ash had never seen before, ever letter baring the name of the organization the they represented, Rocket, Galactic, Magma, Dim-Sun and every other he could think off, the P seeming to belong to an organization called Team Plasma. Between the flags, people and Pokémon ran around as they carried out particular jobs that had been assigned to them whilst the more higher ranking officials gathered around a single, un-uniformed figure that stood in the centre of the camp. The central figure clapping and gesturing wildly as he spoke to the team officials, a large Drapion standing by his side as if to emphasize his authority.

At the head of the camp stood a massive hole seemed to have been ripped into the very foundations of the camp, from which a group of people now lead a series a large, rope pulling Pokémon out of the darkness that filled the cave. Each of the Pokémon, even the two Machamp, seemed to struggle as they pulled out something unseen from the darkness, something large.

* * *

Janise sighed as she watched the last of the now evolved bird Pokémon vanish into the setting sunlight, making a mental note that it was going to be dark in around half an hour as she glanced at her watch before turning to Aipom that sat next to her, munching happily upon a Poffin she had brought along in anticipation for its arrival.

"Well, I guess it time to give everyone the heads up" She muttered as she leaned to her side and slipped her hand into her trouser pocket, struggling to pull her mobile out before opening it and hitting two on her speed-dial.

Exchanging a glance with the small Pokémon, she swallowed and tried to have as much authority as she could in her voice as a cheery voice answered the call.

* * *

As one, every voice in the camp cheered as they saw the crystal emerge from within the entrance to the cave, the pitched black color of the massive jewel seeming to suck every trace of light that existed within as it emerged, causing the dull brown of the ropes the Pokémon were using to pull it to blend in and almost disappear into the darkness.

A pair of Rhyperior grunted under the insane weight of the crystal as they pulled it from its thousand year old tomb, their massive arms straining and aching as they pulled with every ounce of strength to pull it to the centre of the camp. A testament to the unnatural weight of the shadow crystal. Once they had it in place, they both gave a deafening roar before collapsing in a heap on the ground as they were retracted by whatever nameless grunts owned them as those gathered began to swarm around the crystal, keeping their distance as they circled it and allowed Reggie and the team representatives to step forwards towards it.

"Truly remarkable" Reggie whispered as he stepped up towards the massive crystal "I must admit that I never thought it was going to be this big…its magnificent. The stuff of legends standing right before me, a crystal that houses a Pokémon of legends and I can simply reach out and touch it"

He laughed and rubbed his hands greedily before him before reaching out, bringing his hands slowly towards the crystal as if he was afraid that if he were to touch it to fast or strong then the crystal would simply vanish before his very eyes. Moving closer inch by painful inch, his grin only widened as he felt the cold that radiated form the crystals surface.

The second his hand touched the crystal, the screaming started.

All heads shot towards the mouth of the cave as one of the nearby grunts was dragged screaming from his feet by a cloud of purple smoke, which engulfed his entire body with a strange hissing sound. People screamed as they turned to flee before the smoke hissed out of the cave in a tidal wave of hissing smoke that spun through the air before converging upon the crystal. It swarm and danced around Reggie, hissing at him as it formed around a small stone that lay beside the boss' feet, rising up from it and forming the terrible form of a face as it hissed at him, green features glowing and twisting as it leaned towards him.

"_You have disturbed what you should never have seen"_ A voice hissed, twisting and howling from within Reggie's mind, morphing from the mixed voices of women, men and children which spoke in unison in place of the tomb's guardian's own voice, like a thousand voices trapped within themselves _"We can never forgive this trespass"_

Reggie only grinned as he pushed his glasses back up his nose and stared the tomb of spirits straight in the pulsating green eye.

"Hello to you too, I am you new master"

A/N: Next chapter, the Shadow crystal opens and the age of darkness begins!

Anniversary


	9. Chapter 8

"Chansey. Chansey, Chans!"

Nurse Joy smiled grimly as she accepted the warm drink that the Pokémon offered to her and collapsed into the velvet covered chair that stood behind her desk. Her hair hung loosely around her tired face and giant bags hung from under her eyes as she closed them and allowed her head to fall limply against the back of the chair behind her as what little energy that remained in her body vanished and left her nothing more than an exhausted heap. Her clothes hung dirty and creased across her body and her red cross head piece had somehow managed to be lost somewhere along the hectic day.

Around her, a couple of Chansey walked around her office, cleaning whatever they thought looked too dirty in an exhausted parody of their usual duties as they sought to find things to do, seemingly unable to allow themselves to give into to their own fatigue as Nurse Joy just had. They just kept themselves busy rather than stop to think about the work they had been in during the course of the day since the arrival of the injured from Shadow Forrest.

Taking a gentle sip from her cup, Joy sighed heavily before reaching out and pulling a book forward from the back of her desk and flicking almost absentmindedly through it, her hands moving automatically as she flicked through various pages, taking in the pictures that looked up at her, each taking up an entire page for the one picture.

It was a photo album that spanned the life of the PokéCentre in Shadow City, starting from thick, brown stained pictures to clearer black and white images to the modern clear color photos, starting from the training of her grandmother to be a nurse to her own appointment as official nurse of Shadow City. From simple flicking through the pages she could relive years of her past and imagine ages past, from the darkest moments of Shadow City to the happiest moments, such as the image of herself at a mass picnic that the Gym Leaders had orchestrated soon after they had been appointed where they had a free tournament as a way to introduce themselves to the public eye…Joy herself had even broken her usual none battling rule long enough to have her Chansey beaten by Officer Jenny's Arcanine in the semi-finals. Battling for charity in aid of both the construction of the new Gym and repairs of the PokéCentre. Good memories.

Jack and Mike had, from the second they came to the post of Gym Leader, claimed that they believed that, seeing as the role of gym leader was also protector of the city, they should have a good relationship with the local Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy, which they had managed to do without much effort with social events such as the picnic. They had had long chats with each other about plans for future tournaments or awareness meetings and whatever they wanted to promote, with all four present having a good laugh and getting to speak openly on whatever, yet the two gym leaders had never once talked about the monster they had fought in their past.

Yet, as she took another sip from her drink, Joy found herself wondering if whatever had plagued their past had been like what she had gone through today. She shook her head in a futile attempt to dismiss the images of injured children and Pokémon that she had spent the entire day treating, resting the warm cup against her head to sooth the pounding headache she could already feel coming.

She had lost three today, unable to get care to them in time or simply unable to do anything for the injuries, and even now there was another four in a critical state. When that was combined with the amount of supplies that she had to give to those she could help draining almost all of her supplies, her situation was getting on the verge of hopeless.

Flicking through the book before her again, seeking to find a way to delve into a good memory rather than spend the rest of the night dwelling on what had happened that day and what was coming tomorrow without having to turn to alcohol, she found herself looking at a picture of herself as a child, held in her mother's arms cheering and surrounded by cheering trainers outside the Goin region's Pokémon league. It had been the day that the league had official opened and one of her mother's friends had been chosen to become one of the regions elite four, and she herself, at the age of only eight had been the first to battle against him.

Another good memory…

Smiling to herself, Joy flicked through the pages again, taking in every image that involved her one by one. Her first meeting with the cities' Officer Jenny when they were only children, the day she was appointed as head of the PokéCentre, a meeting between every Nurse Joy in the entire region (and she was pleased to note she could still recognize each one and name them) and a picture for each event that the Gym Leaders had thrown since they were appointed, be it battle tournament, Pokémon competition or simple social meeting occasion.

Looking towards her and nodding to each other, the Chansey silently left the room, leaving Nurse Joy to wallow on the past alone….

….

Reggie smiled as he crossed his arm across his chest and bowed down towards the swirling mass of purple and green smoke, closing his eyes in a display of politeness and respect that completely contrasted with the announcement he had made seconds before.

The Pokémon before him hissed as it watched him, its 'face' twisting and turning around it whilst its features remained completely stationary. Glowing green eyes narrowed as it scrutinized every inch of the man before it, strange strokes of thin, green smoke floating into the air from every feature as if it was the face of a Jack-O-Lantern which allowed the smoke from the candle within to seep out in a disturbing dance of mist.

"_Our master?"_ It hissed, its voice not seeming to be truly audible, yet deafening at the same time, every word sounding as if it was coming from a different voice as they mixed together, one second hissing and snarling and the next calm and charming _"We have no master beside the mistress. We are the souls of a thousand souls, their essence and history and yet none of it. How do you claim to be our master when you are but one?"_

"My name is Reggie Kray" Reggie smiled as he straightened himself again and looked the forbidden Pokémon straight in the swirling eye "I am the leader of the alliance and…."

"_Yes we know of you"_ The Pokémon hissed, its voice twisting into dozens of different voices at once as it seemed to grow angry at Reggie's statement _"We have been merged with the minds of those you sent before and become one with them. We have spoken to you for weeks and months and yet never spoken to you before. We know what you have built from the ashes of the crumbling criminal organizations and yet never seen it before. We admire it and have no interest it all at once and wish to see it rise and fall alongside the burning utopia"_

"Now most people would tell you that I love a good riddle" Reggie sighed as he crossed his arms and shifted his weight slightly "But today I am afraid that I am just in too much of a hurry to get my new present from Legend open so how about we speak clearly and move on? I suppose you are the one who dealt with the last team that was sent in there. Did you meet Travis? How is he?"

"_He is not one of us"_ The spirit Pokémon hissed _"We are the souls of all those who we have slain, our kills merging into one within. We are every member of that team your commander Domino sent into the tomb of darkness. We feel the hatred that every one of them felt as they realized that you had sent them in there to die and become one with us. Everyone you sent in that tomb died screaming" _

Reggie frowned in confusion as he heard Domino gasp behind him, turning to find the Team Rocket official backing away a step before regaining her posture and straightening. The Pokémon hissed a strange sound which could be mistaken for laughter and he finally realized what it was that it had been talking about.

The Pokémon was speaking with the voice of one of the tech agents Reggie had personally sent into the tomb, it was speaking with the voice of a man named Dex, the voice of a dead man….

"Oh now I get it!" Reggie stated as he redirected his attention to the smoke like Pokémon "You're the tomb of spirits aren't you, a Spiritomb! Lets see…judging by the way that your voice keeps shifting into the voices of many I'm going to guess that you do exactly what your name implies. Every time you kill someone, you take their souls into yourself and form it into your own subconscious. You aren't just a Pokémon, you are a collection of the every life that you have taken, maybe hundreds of minds all fused together into a single consciousness. Am I right?"

"_This one knows us"_ the Spiritomb hissed as its body swirled around, as if it was trying to break free of the small stone that grounded the cloud of purple gas "_We are the minds of a century of murder and death fused into the present"_

"And it seems that being so many minds fused together has driven you somewhat insane…hence the pointless riddles and referring to yourself as 'we'" Reggie muttered as he glanced behind the Spiritomb to see the group of Alakazam that his grunts had set probing the Shadow Crystal were still working, despite the commotion that the gas like Pokémon had caused. "Now, what is it that you want from me exactly?"

"_We seek to prevent the darkness from rising and yet want it to rise…our mission was to…"_

Reggie raised an eyebrow as the Pokémon hesitated, its eyes lowering to the ground as if it was struggling to say the words it wanted to, as if something was stopping it. Behind it, the Alakazam gave a loud cry and a blast of psychic energy engulfed the crystal.

"NO!" The Spiritomb suddenly screamed as it seemed to realize what it should have been stopping, its floating head bending backwards as it vomited forward a hail of shadow balls that exploded among the psychic Pokémon, sending them stumbling and falling into the ground in a hail of burning smoke and dirt as they fell. The ghost Pokémon howled with rage as it seemed to be sucked down into the ground before ripping out of another stone near one of the grunts that had been working on the crystal, hurling her into the air with a pulse of dark energy before turning on the others.

And then it stopped…

…..

Miles away, from the depths of the alliance headquarters, Commander Mars of Team Galactic narrowed her eyes.

She was stood within the main command centre which stood at the deepest part of a massive structure carved into the side of a mountain on the furthest outskirts of the Goin Region, miles away from the preying eyes of trainers and other authorities. It was the heart of the alliance, a facility that outmatched anything that either team had constructed on their own in every possible way, size and power and stealth, it was the perfect base for what they were. Massive halls and corridors housed over a thousand grunts from each team, if they were not needed for operations in other regions they were stationed here, forming an army that would probably have been able to take the entire region by storm if things came to that, and it will come to that soon enough they thought. It was an honor to even be allowed to stand in its command room, somewhere that an average grunt would never even hope to see, and to be left in charge as Mars had been was truly a blessing from Reggie Kray.

And Mars would have given anything to be out of the room…

"Move that camera closer will you?" She snapped out towards no one in particular, leaving it for the grunts who sat at the various workstations and computer ports that surrounded her to work out whose job it was to carry out her request. Sure enough however, the image before her stretched out as the footage zoomed in on the Pokémon that had become the focus of her attention. A swirling mass of purple smoke that had managed to completely interrupt what was supposed to be a moment of victory of the alliance, stopping them to get at the crystal even after they had pulled it free of the tomb it had been buried in all these years.

A Spiritomb, now that was interesting.

Back in the Shinnoh Region, the Pokémon League Champion Cynthia had owned a Spiritomb, using it as one of her main Pokémon team. It had been a powerful creature, its types allowing it to have no obvious weakness to any move types and its ability to use a wide variety of moves meant it could hit most opponents hard. Though she herself had never faced against the Spiritomb, she had heard enough about it to respect its power. And the Spiritomb that she could now see hovering before the man that ruled the alliance was clearly far greater than any Pokémon a League Champion could be expected to use in a trainer battle.

Where Cynthia's Pokémon had been a light purple, this creature was increasingly dark, the swirling mass of purple smoke becoming almost pitch black as it reached the centre where the slit like green face narrowed further as it examined Reggie. It looked so different then it had looked back in Shinnoh, a mass of hatred and time that seemed to swirl and bend as if it was struggling to keep the smoke of its own body in place, like it was trying to dispel itself and maintain itself all at the same time as it hissed in its inhuman voice, a voice that for some reason the cameras records were unable to pick up in the slightest. Whenever the people or Pokémon on screen spoke it came through perfectly, yet whenever the Spiritomb spoke, there was nothing but static and hissing…

"Quite amazing isn't it?"

Gritting her teeth, Mars simply grunted in reply as she sensed a man slowly move to stand beside her atop of the command platform. Her red eyes narrowed in distaste as she spared a glance to check the features of the newcomer, across the short blue hair that neatly framed the thin and arrogance filled eyes and the think lips curled up into to an amused grin.

Team Rocket Admin Archer looked as arrogant as ever…

"What do you want?"

"To see the resurrection of an old power" he smiled, his eyes never leaving the screen above them "The Pokémon in that crystal was once a power that struck fear into an entire empire but then it was destroyed by humans who must have seemed like nothing but weak children…no nothing but pathetic instincts to its power. And now…thanks to us it shall have all the power that it had lost returned to it and more"

"Are you talking about the crystal or yourself right now?"

This time it was Mars who allowed a trace of amusement to flash across her face as she saw Archer flinch from her comment. There was no secret about the fact that he had attempted to rebuild Team Rocket a few years before in the Johto region by taking over a radio station and broadcasting a message in the hopes that he would be heard by Giovanni and that their leader would return to them. They had failed in this thanks to the appearance of a young trainer who had somehow managed to defeated the entire organization alone with the team they had only been training for a few months…a result that seemed all to recognizable for the members of the alliance…It was also a poorly kept secret that he had only allowed Team Rocket to join the alliance (after being placed in charge of what little was left of it) in the hope that this would also result in Giovanni returning. Mars also knew that this was the exact same reason for why Domino had originally joined the alliance, her friend having told her so during one of their coffee breaks from the training centre.

"It matters not" Archer finally said as he produced a clip board he had held beneath his arm "I have with me the list of final recruits as well as their assignments and new positions. I require your signature, seeing as commander Domino is present at the dig site, to verify that you have overseen their training and approve them for placement within our ranks or not"

"Oh just put it on my desk" Mars snapped, irritated at him trying to make her do the work she hated doing when she was clearly busy ordering other people around. They both knew that her signing or not wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference, the alliance was taking any recruits it could at the time and even if she had demanded that they be refused membership, they would be brought into the ranks anyway. That's how that boy Star had managed to get in. It was all nothing but red tape that she had to go through after being forced into leading the training program and, to be honest with herself; she couldn't care less about it.

"Very well" Archer nodded before handing the clipboard to a galactic grunt that had been stood nearby, leaving the youngish girl to look at him confused as he failed to tell her where to take it and looked back at the monitor "We shall both watch this first. The resurrection of our great power"

"Again…which of you are you talking about?"

….

"Dude, that's a fecking Spiritomb right there!"

"I know what it is" Jack hissed as he watched the forbidden Pokémon hurl another grunt high into the air with its Dark Pulse. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and began to fiercely press what seemed like a random set of buttons, glancing upwards every now and then to see the ghost Pokémon vanish into the stone at its base and then ripping out of another beside the massive crystal that had been dragged upwards. Looking around him, he seemed to do a mental check of who was present. Jack, Mike, Ash and Officer Jenny hid in the over grown forest grass, Dawn and Brock having stayed behind at the destroyed playground to care for the injured Plusle. "Hey Officer Jenny. You got any ideas who the hell that guy in the cream suit is? He seems to be the guy in charge here"

"No idea" Jenny muttered as she glanced back down towards the mass of people before taking cover again for fear of being seen "I can't get a good look at him but I can name around three dozen of the other around him, all of whom have major bounties on their heads. It's like a criminal convention over there or something"

"Perfect" Jack sighed as he put his phone back into his pocket, seeming less then content with the result of his search "Every villain in existence and one incredibly pissed off Ghost type Pokémon…this is shaping out to be a good day"

"No such thing as a good day with Ghost Pokémon for us mate" Mike sighed as placed a reassuring hand on a worried looking Dante before him, the small Riolu merely nodding back at its trainer.

Jack didn't reply as he looked back at the horde of people below, watching as the Spiritomb suddenly stopped its attack and turned towards the crystal that had been constantly been under the mental probe of the psychic Pokémon. He could see it hiss and snarl as the smoke wrapped around it before it lunged at the crystal, practically dragging to stone that imprisoned it along with it as it charged towards what it must have been defending for centuries, it's body physically shaking as black lightning began to consume the crystal.

So this was it, he thought as he watched them, this was the legendary Shadow Crystal. The think that had spawned the name of the city he lived in, the very society of said city, the thing that the badge of his Gym had been based on and the basis of a thousand legends and myths. The crystal that wars had been fought over and the old Kingdom of the Goin Region had fallen to hide from the world. It both fascinated and terrified him to see it brought out into the open like this, a living piece of legend that, if half the stories were true, contained the power of one of the most powerful and destructive Pokémon to have ever existed.

And there was little doubt to him neither that this was what the mass of criminals below wanted nor that this crystal was what had been causing all of the destruction that had effected both Pokémon and human over the last few weeks.

"Jenny" he whispered as he moved over, keeping his head as low as he could for fear of being seen and finding himself grateful to be free of Jr jumping all over him after his partner Pokémon had opted to stay at the play area to care for the wounded Plusle "I need you to head back to the city and call this in. Your faster on your bike and know your way around all of the red tape to get the info to the people who need it sooner"

"I'm not going anywhere" The policewomen snapped back "This is where I'm needed. Everyone an Officer from my family has ever tried to catch and failed is down in that one clearing and you're asking me to leave?"

"No I'm asking you to go and get reinforcements. It would be suicide to just run down there now and arrest everyone!"

Ash watched from the sidelines as the two seemed to have a mini argument. It was strange to see an Officer Jenny get confronted in such a manner, both policewomen and Gym Leader shouting back at each other in an attempt to assert authority whilst also maintaining the usual atmosphere of mutual respect. It was quite amusing for him to be honest.

"Errr…guys" The voice of the second Gym leader, Mike, whispered to them, stopping their augment short "You might want to take a look at this…"

…

"_No!"_

Domino had to fight every instinct in her body simply to prevent herself from activating one of her orchids and attacking the Spiritomb herself as she watched from the sidelines as it hurled another Team Rocket grunt high into the air, the unfortunate man slamming onto the top of a nearby jeep and falling motionless to the ground. She forced her heels into the ground as if trying to root herself to the spot as she watched its smoke like body bend and swirl around it as if agitated by the ghost Pokémon's rage in its attacks. The air filled with hissing as its mouth slowly opened and a terrible blast of smoky purple and black flew out, wrapping around people and choking them as the ominous wind hit them, then it spat out chunks of purple goo that's hit the floor, the smell from them mixing a deeper purple into the gas cloud as it added Toxic to its attack. To the left an Alakazam fell to the ground gagging, its spun clattering against the stone as it grabbed its throat and fell, its pain causing a powerful blast of psychic power to fly from its for head…

And hit directly into the centre of the Shadow Crystal…

Turning slowly, the Spiritomb fell motionless as it looked towards the crystal; its eyes open wide as it seemed to mouth something before screaming out in what appeared to be pain. A voice whispered out from it, a single voice that had not been a part of the curious of different voices it had usually spoken with, speaking in a language that no one had heard before as it watched the crystal as a series of flashes of lights and purple lightning tore across the surface of the eon old crystal.

Then, with a deafening tearing sound and the clap of air both escaping and entering a sealed space, the tip of the crystal shattered and an explosion of burning black and white light tore from its tip…

…

"What the hell!" Mars cursed out loud as the monitor exploded into static, all contact with the dig sight being lost in a flash of white light from the crystal "Get me of visual back now!"

"We can't sir!" A Dim sun based worker called out from her station, hitting what looked like a random series of buttons on his computer hub "All radio signals from the dig sight has been cut off, like something's interfering with them"

"What? How could the region authorities have gotten a hold of us so soon?"

"Perhaps it wasn't the authorities…"

"Huh?" Mars could only blink at Archer as he spoke, his arrogant face now uncharacteristically blank as he continued to stare towards the static filled screen "Then who could it be?"

"Our prize" Archer said simple, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe "perhaps whatever power was released in the explosion of light that we just saw leave the crystal held some EMP qualities, that would have short circuited all electrical devices in the area, such as the camera that we were using. Annoying, but such damage will only be temporary…we must just wait now"

"Joy…"

…..

"Arceus damn it…"

Domino groaned as she slowly pulled herself back onto her feet, holding her head as she fought against the dizziness and pain that had taken her after her head had had an unfortunate meeting with a large rock that lay sticking out of the grass beneath her. Looking around her, she saw that the entire population of the dig sight, men and women of every team and rank were also pulling themselves back to their feet. They had all been hit by an impossibly strong blast of wind she slowly remembered, a wave of tempest that had torn out of the tip of the crystal as soon as it had cracked open, tearing apart tents and digging equipment and hurling people backwards and off their feet. On the corner of the dig sight, she could even make out the tangled remains of a jeep that had been cart wheeled by the wind, its hull bent out of shape after it had crashed upside down into a tree.

All around her, people cursed and muttered and groaned in pain as they tried to regain their senses…all except two.

Before her, Reggie laughed as he watched the crystal crack further, the Spiritomb simply staring at the same spot of the crystal with what looked like an image of horror in its face of swirls and green smoke, the man and the Pokémon, both watching as the crystal that an entire civilization had burned and died in order to protect shattered and bent out of shape until, with a loud groan, the top fully melted away and a sea of black smoke begun to seep from the now open gap.

"Yes come!" Reggie cried out in his laughter "Come my ultimate weapon! Return to the world that you were taken from and return to the power that you had take from you. This is the return of your age, of your empire!"

Beside him, the Spiritomb only howled and moaned as if the releasing of the crystal was hurting it and swayed around in the unnaturally strong wind that was now propelling the pitch black smoke away from the crystal and into a pool of nothingness just before them, the glow of its eyes seeming to dim slightly under the presence of the smoke.

Slowly, with a series of loud hisses and the crackle of power, the smoke rose up into a large column that hovered before them, a tower of black that hung on the spot. It resembled no shape or Pokémon, as if it was nothing more than smoke held in place by its own psychic power as Reggie walked towards it, his hands held out wide as if to hug it.

"Welcome!" he called out before seeming to bow as an afterthought and adding "My lord"

There was again a moments silent as the gathered people watched the smoke, awaiting for a response that never come. Even Reggie seemed to be put off for a second as he watched the smoke swirl before him, keeping in its single column as the thick black smoke seemed to mimic the Spiritomb as it shifted to the wind, remaining utterly still.

"Hello?" He called out, seeming to sing slightly despite what it was he was talking to "Earth to freaky smoke thing! Its morning! Time to wake up and smell the roses and all that"

Still the smoke stayed motionless, revealing no trace of the Pokémon that the alliance had been formed and had worked so hard to see. Reggie allowed his arms to drop slowly with a childlike huff as he turned to the admins behind him and shrugged, before pausing as he pulled out his phone from his pocket, the 'I hear you like Mudkip' theme song sounding incredibly out of place as it rung.

"Excuse me for a second, I have to take this. We will continue this riveting talk in but a minute" he smiled back at the smoke before holding the phone to his ear "Yello?...Oh hello there my dear…yes…uh-huh…oh you don't say….he didn't…ok, thanks ever so much"

When he hung the phone up, Reggie's grin was still present on his face, but it had switched to something far crueler as he turned towards the collection of team admin.

"Well…a reliable informant has just informed me that we have a little audience watching us at the moment. That boy you all see, to love so much…what was his name? Smoke? Oh no that's this guy behind me" a jeer of his thumb towards the smoke "Oh yes, Ash. Seems he watching us from just up that little hill with his friends. Now, I want you to go up there and kill him, that sound like a p…."

Reggie paused as a sudden wind blew around him, causing the Spiritomb to lower and vanish within its stone in order to save itself from being blow away. The wind howled as it blew around them with a terrible force before, with the sound of what could have been mistaken as laughter; the column of smoke rose into the air and flew forwards like a smoking arrow, black as the night.

"Never mind…" Reggie muttered, his grin returning "seems our new friend wants to give us a thank you gift after rescuing it..."

…..

"Time to go!" Jack cried as he lunged himself backwards and began running, the little Mime Jr on his head barely managing to keep hold of him after his sudden burst of movement. He didn't look behind him to see if anyone was following, relying upon the patter of feet behind him to be his proof.

The trees seemed to be all of a sudden leaning in towards them as the group turned and fled from the camp, desperately hoping that they had been wrong and that whoever that man had been had not seen them. They could hear the odd shouted voice coming from behind but oddly enough, there didn't seem to be anyone actually chasing after them, just a soft breeze that sent a chill running down their spins as it reached them. To the left, Mike grunted as he noticed a skeleton like branch a second to late and ploughed headlong through it, leaving a cut just above his eye but the group kept running, suddenly possessed by the terrible feeling that something was after them.

Dawn screamed suddenly as a black shape shot across the ground beneath her feet, a massive puddle of impossible blackness that swam across the ground and twirled around as if it were a shadow cast by a dancer. But there was nothing in the sky that was casting it as it shot forward and swam ahead of them, consuming any light that should have been cast upon the land that it passed over before moving on without leaving a trace. The group stopped and cursed as it swirled and danced before finally coming to a halt in the centre of the path ahead of them, becoming motionless as it seemed to wait for them save for the odd swirl of blackness that swirled in the air like ink would under water.

Then, accompanied by another burst of bone chilling wind, it began to rise.

A long strand of blackness began to rise from the puddle as if to massive hands were squeezing it upwards, the black beginning to glow and flicker as it got larger until it resembled a pure white flame that flickered and swirled in the unnatural wind, framed by a oversized collar over blood red which stuck out from the still liquid like blackness as it rose until it resembled a multi-toothed jaw which wrapped around the flame like a barrier. Then, with an inhuman sound of whispering, the blackness rose into the air and took a shape that resembled a human in only that it had two arm like shapes on either side. The centre shriveled and shrunk until it was impossibly thin and the lower half flattened to take the form of a skirt like shape, then finally, two long flares of blackness rose from its shoulders that shimmered and blew in the wind.

The creature had taken all of a couple of seconds to rise before it hovered there before the suddenly trapped group.

"Get back" Jenny muttered as she used her hand to push Dawn behind her, her other arm pulling out her Pokéball.

"We need to move and now!"

"No…" Jenny said slowly "Its managed to get ahead of us already…running won't do anything…"

"Then what?"

"There's a second path through the woods, Jack and Mike know of it. You can use that to get around here"

"You can?"

"yes you" Jenny sighed, before slowly looking up towards the group "I'm gonna stay here and keep it away from you"

"Don't be stupid Jenny!" Jack shouted out suddenly, his voice sounding more filled with desperate than authority now "You can't hope to stop that thing!"

"But someone has to try" The Officer simply said "And if it can buy you all time to escape then that's that. You Gym leaders are needed more than me in the city right now, you need to protect them from what's coming"

"Are you kidding me! Rank has nothing to do with this! You are coming and that's the end of…"

Jack stopped in mid sentence a Jenny placed a hand on his shoulder and fixed his eyes with her own, his face looking surprised as she whispered something to him and smiled. It wasn't a warm smile, it was sad and hopeless, yet it was accepting as she stepped forward and hugged her cities Gym leader. Jack didn't move or speak as when she let go and stepped back and nodded to him, seemingly stunned senseless by whatever she had said to him before he too begun to step back slowly and nodded.

"Thank you, both of you" She smiled at the two Gym Leaders and their partner Pokémon "I trust you will know what to do when the time comes. I leave Shadow City in your hands now"

"Jenny…"

"You should get going. All of you. Janise is waiting in her car for you all in the clearing that we arrive in. Now go!"

And they went, Gym Leaders and trainers alike turned and ran back into the forest, the only one to dare to look back being Jr, who only stared at Jenny with a hollow smile before they vanished from sight, leaving Jenny alone to turn towards the silent Pokémon before her, her Pokéball finally activating and releasing an Archinine in a flash of red light.

For a second, she allowed her eyes to close and think, images of her time with the Gym leaders and her best friend Nurse Joy flashing into her mind, seeming to remind herself of why she was staying to fight. What she was doing this sacrifice for…

As the sound of their running finally drifted out of earshot, Jenny finally opened her eyes and looked up towards the pitch black Pokémon, a faint line of tears filling the lower part of her eyes as she allowed her Pokéball to fall from her hand, the faint tap of it hitting the grass below her seeming to echo around her. Her gloved hands clenched tight into a fist as she tasted blood seep into her mouth, having not even realized that she had been biting down on her lip as she straightened her back and stared at the pulsating blue eye of the Pokémon before her.

"My name is Officer Jenny of the Shadow City Police force and…"

"Silence"

Jenny found herself gulping as she heard a voice hiss in her head, a voice that boomed with power and yet almost seemed to whisper from another world. Beside her, her Arcanine gave out a small whine and backed away slightly, seeming to put on a visible sign of its mental effort to avoid running from the dark Pokémon. Jenny opened her mouth again but only managed to get a faint whisper to leave her, seeming to have had the power of speech robed cleanly from her by the voice of this one Pokémon. The women that had faced down members of Team Rocket without even having broken a sweat was now utterly powerless as the dark Pokémon hovered in the air before her, not even moving as its shoulders and head flickered and bent in the wind like smoke.

And for the time, legendary Pokémon and Police Officer simply stared at each other, one unable to talk and the other deafly silent, brown eyes fixed completely upon glowing blue eye. Not a sound could be heard around them, no wildlife remained to watch them as they stood, and no living thing save the trees had stayed to watch the play that was about to unfold. There would be nothing to remember what was about to happen…

"You are a figure of authority?"

Jenny jumped as the Pokémon suddenly spoke again after what had felt like an age of utter silence. Her entire body felt like it had run cold as her body seemed to physically pull her back a step, in its urge to get away from it. She stayed silent for another few seconds as she watched it hover in the middle of the path, its single visible eye narrow as it awaited the answer to its question.

"Y…Yes" She managed to say, her eyes seeming unable to blink under the unrelenting gaze of the black Pokémon "L…like I said, my name is…"

"I require information about this time and world" the Pokémon said, its eye unmoving nor showing any sign of a mouth, the voice simply seeming to emit rather than coming from anywhere in particular "It seems that I have been sealed away then I had first thought. You will tell me what it is that I need to know"

"Well I'll tell you what I…what I can but I can't pass on any confidential…"

"You will tell me everything"

Again Jenny felt a chill run down her body as the Pokémon growled at her in its harsh voice. Something about the atmosphere that surrounded the black Pokémon made her feel like giving it even the slightest piece of information would allow it to manipulate her and the world around it. Made her feel like it would be able to bring destruction with even the slightest piece of knowledge…

"I…I can't" She whispered as she again took a step back, her right hand instinctively gripping around the mane of her Arcanine in an attempt to reassure herself. Her survival instincts told her to do as it said but she knew she couldn't, to do so would betray and doom everything…

"I see. Disappointing" The blue eye narrowed further until it seemed to be nothing less than a slit in the black of the Pokémon's body "Then you are of no use to me"

What followed seemed to happen in a flash.

The pitch black Pokémon seemed to sigh as it rose its arm and fired a ball of pure blackness from its palm, the flickering smoke like parts of its body shaking and blowing backwards as they caught the current of the blast of power that had emitted from the shot. At the same time, almost as if the act of the Pokémon focusing on its attack had caused it to release its hold over her, Jenny was suddenly able to swing her body to the side and miss it by inches. The ball flew a few inches away before tearing apart a tree a few feet away, its impact signaled by a devastating explosion of black energy and shattered wood. What had once been the tree's trunk was now nothing more than a storm of wooden shrapnel that flew out in a lethal hail, leaving the top of the tree to crumble and fall in on itself, releasing a deafening crash that roared like thunder as it shattered the peace of the forest.

The black Pokémon didn't seem to be notice her sudden movement as it rose its other arm and fired a second shot at her, not even turning its body around to face her Arcanine used its mouth to grip her arm and pull her out of the way. This time however, she failed to get out of the attack's blast range and her body was sent hurling through the air as the explosion of energy that destroyed the second tree just as it had the first blew around her. The Pokémon's glowing blue eye didn't even glance up from the path where she had originally stood as she slammed hard against a third three, the sickening sound of bone snapping signaling her breaking something on impact. It was as if the Pokémon didn't even view her death as being worth paying the remotes amount of attention to.

"Arcanine!"

Officer Jenny yelled out to her Pokémon as it howled its name and leapt over her, taking a defensive stance before her head and vomiting out a storm of fire that swarmed out and engulfed its target, hiding the black Pokémon from sight in storm of fire. Jenny could only stare in painful wonder as her partner Pokémon made a gulping noise before the column of fire seemed to explode around it and the black Pokémon as it switched from Flamethrower to Fire Blast without a seconds pause.

This was it, she thought as she watched it. The mighty power of the Pokémon known as the legendary Pokémon, Arcanine, unleashed on a single target. Jenny had been with her Pokémon since the day it had hatched and had watched its power grow with each battle it had been in. But this was something completely different, the fire type wasn't restraining itself in the slightest as it continued to blast its most powerful attacks at the target, now invisible behind the wall of fire that had consumed it. This was no battle for the Arcanine, the fire Pokémon was fighting to kill its opponent in order to protect her, it was putting every ounce of its power into its onslaught.

For what felt like an age Jenny was forced to stare into the burning inferno that burned before her, the pain from her broken leg keeping her from doing much more then crawl towards the tree she had hit seconds before and use it to pry herself upright. It was an act of extreme willpower to not just lie there, but that wouldn't have been a fitting last act for someone like her she thought, a defender of Shadow City and Officer.

The very air seemed to burn as Arcanine continued its onslaught, its teeth bared and its eyes narrow in the sheer act of exhaustion needed to continue the attack before, with a sound a clapping wind, the flames were hurled back at it by the mere act of the black Pokémon twitching its hand. The flames swirled around it like a tornado before swinging around and crashing against the canine Pokémon with a flash of fire and smoke. The air was filled with the sound of its painful howling as its exhausted body was hit by the full power of its own attacks and the world around it exploded into sheering hot pain. From before it, the black Pokémon seemed to let out a laugh as the white flames rose from the red jaw like outgrowth that surrounded its neck, revealing that it had solidified its pure white 'hair' around its head just beneath the jaw as a sort of shield, allowing it to remain utterly untouched by Arcanine's final attack.

"Worthless" The black Pokémon sighed as again it rose its right arm and shot a ball of darkness from its palm, its body blowing in mid air from the blast of energy as it now watched the orb fly across the burning forest path and impact in the centre of the burning inferno, directly into the body of the canine Pokémon in the centre.

Again Jenny's world was filled with the deafening roar of clapping air as the orb struck her Pokémon and an explosion of black energy tore the fire apart, the blast of wind blowing it away whilst, and…in a flash of black lightning and a howl of agony, her beloved partner Pokémon was blown straight out of existence…

"No!" Jenny screamed out as she lunged towards the explosion in a vain attempt to save her Pokémon but her broken leg buckled under her weight and she fell to the ground with a heavy thud, searing pain taking her as the black energy finally imploded on itself and vanished, leaving nothing more than a burning crater in the ground.

"Creatures like that don't deserve to live" The black Pokémon snarled as it continued to hover on the spot, having not moved an inch since Arcanine's attack. The blue eye that remained visible behind the flickering white of its 'hair' pulsating slightly as it watched the flames flicker in the grass before, with another flick of its wrist, they died out.

"How…how dare you!"

Now, finally the Pokémon looked up towards the women it had attacked, its face remaining utterly expressionless as it watched her support herself against a tree again and pull out a small handgun that had hung from her belt, the stretch of the leather of its holster betraying the fact that it was the first time she had ever removed it. Her face was an image of rage as she leant against a tree in an upright position again and began pulling the trigger, tears mingling with the blood and dirt that had already covered her face as she pulled it again and again in her rage. The Pokémon didn't try to dodge as the flashes of the bullets struck it nor did Jenny stop, firing again and again in her grief driven rage before all she managed to produce from her fire arm was a series of loud clicks, the clip that she had promised never to use now dry. For a second she stood panting in pain and rage as she watched the Pokémon hover, waiting to see it fall as the smoke like parts of its body continued to bend into the wind before the gun fell from her hands as she saw it give another board sigh.

Not a single bullet had struck the Pokémon, each of the shots having stopped a few inches before it, flattened by their impact against an invisible wall that had formed around it. Like something from a movie the bullets had been stopped by some unnatural power before the black Pokémon, leaving it untouched as they hovered before it flat and bent under the impossible impact. Slowly, the Pokémon rose a clawed hand and gripped one of the bullets between the tips of two of its fingers, raising it towards its eyes as it examined it and narrowing its eyes.

"Interesting" It muttered to itself as it held the bullet "Metallic projectiles fired out of small hand held artillery…it would appear that you humans have developed your technology greatly since last I was released from the crystal. You always did have a strange fascination with killing your own kind"

Then, with a gesture, the wall of stopped bullets fell to the ground harmlessly as, slowly; the Pokémon began to glide forwards. Its shoulders and head flowed and warped in the wind as it drifted towards her, its arms held apart on each side as its eyes drifted down to look at her through a gap in its red jaw like shape. It clawed hand clenched and unclenched as it reached her and loomed over her body framed by the flames left by her Pokémon attacks like some image out of hell.

"This is your last chance to give me the information that I need"

"Go…to hell" It was the best act of defiance Jenny could muster as she spat at the Pokémon before slumping against the tree and falling into a sitting position, her strength gone.

"Very well"

And as the Pokémon rose its hand to point at her and a last black orb appeared within its palm, Jenny could only think about those in the city and the people she had allowed to escape. She wouldn't be able to help them through what was coming and could do nothing more than think of a brief prayer for them before, with a flash of black energy, the world Shadow Cities Officer Jenny went still…

A/N: Jesus…did I honestly just write that? I love Officer Jenny…

Seriously, this Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny of Shadow City are characters I have had in my head for years, I have designed their entire lives and know their stories…it pained me to write that…

That's why this chapter took so long, I had to make her death right…and to be honest I'm still not happy with it…If I improve it in any way I will replace this chapter :)

Please Read and review as reviews mean I will release the next chapter sooner (I admit reviews do drive me to work harder)


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